Northlight Radio Northlight Radio
On air now: The Haar with Isla Fraser/// Now playing: Mogwai, Take Me Somewhere Nice/// Next: Bothy Sessions, 8pm/// Requests: text the studio/// On air now: The Haar with Isla Fraser/// Now playing: Mogwai, Take Me Somewhere Nice/// Next: Bothy Sessions, 8pm/// Requests: text the studio///

The voices / 24 hours a day

Presenters On air

Fourteen people hold the microphone at Northlight. Some have been here since the first broadcast from a spare room above a chip shop in 2011, some joined last winter after sending us a mix on a memory stick. They pick every record themselves. Nobody hands them a playlist.

See the schedule Send us a demo
woman radio presenter wearing headphones at a microphone in a small independent broadcast studio

Weeknights 6–8pm

Isla Fraser

The Haar

New Scottish releases first, then whatever the evening needs. Dream pop, slow builds, the odd twelve minute closer. Isla has presented the drivetime slot since 2014 and still opens the request line every Thursday.

man playing fiddle beside a radio mixing desk in a wood panelled studio

Thursdays 8–10pm

Callum Doig

Bothy Sessions

Trad played loud. Fiddle, pipes, Gaelic song and a live set most weeks from whoever is passing through Edinburgh. Callum grew up in Lochaline and drives back for the Mull sessions every August.

woman dj selecting vinyl records from a crate in a radio station booth

Saturdays 2–4pm

Priya Nair

Ferry Cross

Dub, highlife, Ethiopian jazz and whatever Priya digs out of the crates on Newhaven Road. Two hours of records that travelled a long way to reach a Saturday afternoon in Leith.

man alone at a lit mixing desk during a late night radio broadcast

Sun–Thu midnight–3am

Rab MacLeod

Night Shift

Ambient, drone and field recordings made on the Moray coast. Rab talks maybe four times a show. Taxi drivers, bakers and insomniacs have been texting the studio since he started in 2016.

young dj mixing on turntables with headphones round his neck in a basement studio

Fridays 10pm–midnight

Tam Okonkwo

Leith Low End

Jungle, garage, bassline and dubplates from producers within a bus ride of the studio. Mixed live, no pre-record, and the last twenty minutes usually belongs to a guest.

older woman presenter laughing at a radio microphone with a mug of tea

Saturdays 9–11am

Morag Sinclair

Kitchen Radio

Folk, country and the request line wide open. Morag reads out every message, including the ones about the football, and has done since the station moved into Bonnington Mill.

Slots change with the seasons

Summer brings festival specials and outside broadcasts from harbours and village halls, so the grid shifts around. The schedule page always shows what is running this week, and the ticker under the header shows what is playing right now.

This week's schedule

Behind the glass

The desk
never
runs itself

Every show that goes out has someone in the back room levelling the guest mic, chasing the clearance for a session track and mopping up after the Friday night crowd. Three of them keep Northlight Radio on air.

  1. 01

    Danny Rae

    Studio engineer

    Built the live room out of plasterboard and old duvets in 2013 and has rebuilt it twice since. Records every in-studio session, mixes them the same night, and knows which fader crackles.

  2. 02

    Freya Lamont

    Producer, music & features

    Listens to every demo that comes through the letterbox and the inbox. Books the guests, writes the running orders and produces the harbour town documentaries that go out each January.

  3. 03

    Shona Bell

    Station manager & weekend cover

    Handles the licence paperwork, the rota and the advertisers, then takes the Sunday afternoon slot when someone is stuck on a delayed train. Answers the studio phone more than anyone.

Want a
slot?

We add two or three new presenters a year. Send a thirty minute mix or a five minute talk pilot with a note about what the show would be. Freya listens to all of it, and replies either way.

Get in touch

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