Laugh a Minute

Verity Sharp plays songs to put a smile on your face with music that uses the sounds of laughter. There’s the sacred cleansing songs of Peru’s Shipibo shamans from a ritual for happiness, and a 100-year-old recording of opera singers laughing with the accompanying cornetist. There’ll be field recordings of the world’s funniest bird and unsettling reinterpretations of TV sitcom laugh tracks from artist Rubén Patiño. Plus a slice of pulsing acid-house that fuses children’s laughter, French spoken word and North African pipes from Japanese electronic music pioneer Haruomi Hosono.

Elsewhere there’s music made from inside the womb with a debut album from Luca Yupanqui, whose musician parents used MIDI technology and synthesizers to translate her movements in utero into sound.

Produced by Katie Callin
A Reduced Listening Production for BBC Radio 3