If you are tired of your usual discography or playlists and wish to dive into more unknown territories, London-based radio application NTS Radio might just have what you’re looking for… or what you never thought you needed.
When I was a wee lad, I used to ride in the car with my father, who would drive me to practice in the evening. While going to or coming back, we would sometimes listen to a radio station I didn’t know at the time, but which happened to suit my musical tastes and fulfilled my wish for “less talking, more listening”. After all, who isn’t tired of having endless ads interrupting their music? I recently discovered an app called NTS Radio that scratches that same itch again.
It all started with an ad on Instagram
I was intrigued since the ad itself was quite unlike what you’d normally see, with just a picture of the UI and the promise of City Pop music. Initially dismissing the ad, I ended up downloading the app after it popped up on my screen once again, a few days later.
As soon as you open it, you are greeted by a very clean, minimalist UI. There are only 5 options at the bottom, and everything is intuitive. The app offers live radio feeds, lets you discover artists via a selection system, and hands out musical “guides” that are selections of musical tracks iconic to certain genres and/or artists.
Those selections are curated by community members and usually last 1 to 2 hours, with a very smooth fade-out/fade-in that makes for a seamless transition between songs. The tracklist is visually indicated, although the app has paywalled its timestamps behind the Supporter tier.
This is the main interface. The floating player makes it very easy to browse while listening to a playlist.
So… how is this different from Spotify?
For starters, you will not find the usual famous artists from all over the world here. NTS Radio is a free radio app that survives on community donations.
The app doesn’t intend to deliver a track-by-track experience, but rather a more old-fashioned, underground feeling. Instead of searching for the songs you love, it encourages looking at available feeds of unknown music and just tapping into something that you’re not yet familiar with—feeling like checking out some 60s Lebanese rock? There’s a feed for that. Need some traditional Burmese folk? That’s doable. Working and looking for Hungarian Classical pieces to help out? NTS delivers. The app also offers to delve into the works and story of certain more or less famous artists with the “In Focus” sections.
While I was initially attracted by the promise of a City Pop playlist, my current favorite is a selection of carefully chosen Japanese Jazz pieces with frequent “interruptions” by a feminine voice reciting excerpts from A Hundred Verses from Old Japan.
The mixtapes are essentially live streams that you can tap into at any given time.
NTS Radio: Free Music for Everyone?
The only unwanted “interruption” you will get is a short “NTS Logo” introduction at the beginning of each selection. And while the app encourages donations, there are little to no reminders. The app blends into the background naturally, and signing up is free and unlocks certain features. The community also has a Discord server, as well as a very old YouTube channel with short presentations of artists and music. You get the feeling that they are passionate about music and encourage discussion around genres and artists.
In short, NTS Radio is a small app by music lovers, for music lovers. It’s all about discovery and diving into unknown genres, artists, and epochs. It probably isn’t as “far-reaching” as the more famous music apps out there, but it does fill a certain niche or two, and I really recommend trying it out.
