The Station That Never Sleeps

There is a moment, usually around three in the morning, when the house goes quiet and the only thing still awake is the radio. Not mine. Yours, perhaps. Somewhere a stranger has pressed play, and a track I made is filling a room I will never see.

That thought is why Monty Sounds Radio exists.

Back to the booth

Long before the Monty Network, before the cameras and the drone, I was a DJ. It was the years after the army and before I travelled, and I learned something in that booth that never left me. Music is not really about the person playing it. It is about the room. The best nights were the ones where I disappeared and only the sound remained.

Decades later, living in Poland, I had a growing catalogue of my own music and nowhere for it to simply play. Streaming platforms wait for you to choose. A radio station doesn't wait. It just carries on, whether anyone is listening or not, the way a lighthouse keeps turning on an empty sea.

Always on

So I built one. Monty Sounds Radio is an independent internet station, streaming 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from Poland. There are no adverts and no presenter talking over the music. There is no account to create and no sign-up wall: you press play and it is there.

You can find it at montysoundsradio.com, on TuneIn and Radio.net, and through its own apps for Android phones and Google TV. The site now speaks English and Polish, which feels right for a station born between two countries.

Who is listening?

I never know exactly. That is part of the magic. A radio station is an act of faith: you send the signal out and trust that it lands somewhere.

Sometimes I picture them. A driver on a motorway at night, a student who can't sleep, someone cooking in a kitchen on the other side of the world. None of them know each other, and none of them know me. For three or four minutes, though, we are all hearing the same thing at the same time.

That is what the radio is for. Not to be followed, liked or shared, just to keep you company.

The signal is on now. It will still be on when you've finished reading.

Listen to Monty Sounds Radio