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You Heard Me Write, the experimental Spotify Original hosted and produced by Kacie Willis has returned for a second season. The podcast, which was first workshopped as a part of the Sound Up Podcasting Accelerator program for season one, features artists who collaborate on a multimedia group project without having any knowledge about the identities of their counterparts. Only after the project’s completion are the artists introduced to one another in a salon-style roundtable discussion.
This latest season will have ten episodes.
Over the course of the season, Willis narrates and guides listeners through 30 original pieces, which include never before heard prose, music, and sound design. In each episode, there is one writer and two music producers or sound design artists (referred to as “soundies”), who in the latter part of the episode, explore the roles of creativity and anonymity and the power of connection through the pieces they’ve created and the conversations they have with each other.
The artists, all from different walks of life, are also grouped by episode within their three different coastal U.S. cities (New York City, Atlanta, and Los Angeles). The first three episodes include creators from NYC, followed by Atlanta, Los Angeles, and one fully remote session. Unlike the first season, they are not outside this year and were able to connect in studios, such as Gimlet Media in NYC for the final Salon-style recording. The second season also includes more sound design and narrative elements overseen by Willis and mixed by Moon Echo Audio. Executive producers from Spotify include Julie McNamara, Corinne Gilliard, Natalie Tillack, and Jane Zumwalt.
You Heard Me Write captures the vibe of live, immersive theater alongside a writer’s room and improv, music jam session, calling back to Willis’s background in theatrical sound design. It explores the way art and the act of creating art has changed throughout the pandemic, and it is a perfect listen for folks craving more of this type of artistic expression and connection. An upcoming June episode will follow the work of queer artists in Los Angeles, just in time for Pride Month.