BBC 6 Music Indie Forever Sonic Branding & Station Imaging
Updated: 2 days ago
We are excited to share the incredible opportunity to collaborate with the BBC Radio 6 Music and Granny Eats Wolf team on the launch of the BBC’s brand-new station: Indie Forever.
The new BBC 6 Music stream will deliver non-stop indie hits, right from the 1980s to championing today’s indie artists, as well as celebrating local scenes and venues across the UK. Expect legendary presenters and shows featuring Steve Lamacq & Felix White with the Morning Session, Indie Forever Disco with Beth Ditto, plus rare BBC archives, live sessions, and documentary specials on bands like Oasis and The Smiths.
Our team were involved in the writing, recording, and production of the new sonic branding for the station. A huge thank you to the team at Granny Eats Wolf and BBC Radio 6 Music for trusting us to build the audio identity for this brand new station.
BBC 6 Music Indie Forever launches today (22nd July 2026) exclusively on BBC Sounds! Listen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live/bbc_radio_six_indie_forever
Our executive music producer Chris Hollis shares his experience creating, playing, recording and producing the BBC 6 Music Indie Forever sonic branding and radio imaging:
"The project was great to work on - especially as I’m such a big fan of 6 Music and it continues to be massively influential to not just me personally, but to my company; which I run with my wife Stacey (and our employees too, who are all avid listeners).
As a music producer I have always loved - and still love - hearing new music, and listening to presenters with a genuine authentic passion for music - and that’s what 6 Music has always sounded like to me; a bunch of people who just absolutely live and breathe music in the same way that I do, and my friends and family do.
New Noise Audio have worked with the guys at Granny Eats Wolf many times before on bespoke music projects of all shapes and sizes, so it was great to collaborate with them, and I know that this music and this station is very close to their hearts too - so there was a real impetus to make something special.
Sonic branding is hugely important - especially when it comes to radio. A consistent brand sound and a strong, memorable sonic ident can be an incredibly simple and effective way to establish a connection with listeners, and make what they’re listening to feel familiar and memorable. In particular when dealing with a project like this one, where nostalgia comes in to play; utilising that emotion can really draw people in and make them feel ‘at home’ with the station they’re listening to.
The first part of the process is establishing a melody that everybody felt captured the essence of the brand; and then developing it in terms of production and sound design; which is largely reliant on having a strong conceptual brief to work from in the first place, which we had - so once that melody was decided, the rest came together really organically.
As New Noise Audio prides itself on making authentic music, it's important to me to play and record as many instruments as possible for the sonic identity. I feel this adds to that raw, live indie sound, nodding to the underground venues and culture that has surrounded the genre from the past to the present.
I think there is way more to consider with a sonic identity than there is with a bed - how do you evoke a feeling in just a few seconds? You don’t have the kind of time or space that you do with longer pieces of music - everything about the execution has to be pretty deeply considered; but also that idea itself has to remain simple enough to be memorable."
Listen above for the main sonic branding and radio imaging music for Radio 6 Music Indie Forever station. A further 2 branded tracks and various edits were produced as part of the sonic branding suite.
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