Peabody-winning Environmental Podcast to Mix Music, Journalism in Live Show

A Midwesterner whose heart was captured by the mountains of the West during family trips in her youth, Amy Martin moved to Missoula in her 20s and instantly fell in love — with both the landscape and the community. 

Martin plunged into the vibrant music scene of Northwest Montana. She performed as a solo singer-songwriter act, in addition to appearances with various bands, traveling from Missoula up to the Flathead Valley, all while staying deeply connected to the beautiful surroundings that drew her to the Treasure State. 

But when the sounds of nature started to crescendo over the songs she was singing, Martin followed her gut and opted to create a different listening experience: Threshold — an audio-documentary style podcast aimed at deepening understanding of human relationships with each other and the natural world.

“I don’t think I even exactly had decided I’m gonna set down music,” Martin said. “It was just like this other thing was bubbling up, and I kept wanting to do that more and more. Finally, I was like, well, I can’t really do both of these things, so I started pitching some stories to Montana Public Radio, and then National Public Radio, and then after I’d done some news stories, I was like, I love this.”

“After I had kind of gotten my feet wet again with news, then I was like, I like this, but it isn’t exactly what I want,” she added. “I want to be able to tell a deeper story. I want to be able to dig in and really show all the different sides of a story. So that’s what led me to start Threshold.” 

Created in 2017, Threshold has released six seasons, exploring topics that include the rewilding of the American bison, drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the history, pollution and resistance on the front lines of America’s petrochemical industry. The podcast has won numerous journalism accolades, including a Peabody Award and a National Edward R. Murrow News Service Award. 

“I think sometimes when people hear podcasts, they think it’s going to be like a chat show where people sit around and kind of just BS with each other in the kitchen or whatever,” Martin said. “Ours is much more like a film. We spend 18 months or more crafting a season, putting together a script, and then we release a season that’s on a theme, and all of the themes are something to do with nature.”

Martin’s love for audio journalism and soundscape developed while growing up on a farm in Iowa, where her family listened avidly to National Public Radio. 

“I’m sitting there brushing my teeth on the farm, and all of a sudden, I’m listening to people in a big city in Nigeria, and I’m like, ‘oh wow,’” Martin said. “It just transports you.”

Threshold aims to transport listeners the same way, peeling back the layers of complex environmental issues.

“I was giving a talk one time and a student at a university … kept asking me what kind of activist I was, and I was like, you know, I really feel like the show is not activism,” Martin said. “It’s making space to think together about something. And she was like, ‘Oh, so you’re a thinktivist?’ And I was like, ‘Yes, that is it. I will claim that.’ That is the kind of difference I want to make. Let’s have more thinking.”

In a media landscape where condensed content is at a premium, Threshold goes against the grain, typically taking up to two years to produced a season of episodes running 30 to 50 minutes. 

Martin, a journalist by trade rather than a scientist, said unpacking these complicated environmental issues takes time to learn before she can even begin asking questions. Environmental patterns themselves can unfold over years, decades, centuries or longer, so the podcast’s slow pace mirrors its subject. 

“It taps into the part of me that’s always been a little bit rebellious because I just don’t think everybody wants only an Instagram post or a video on TikTok,” Martin said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. That can serve a purpose. But I think that people, some people, want to learn more, go deeper.

“It’s also not either or. You can be a person who watches 50 reels, and then also out of that realizes there’s one thing in there that I want to dig into more. But if we never offer anything but the quickest possible and the most condensed possible version of a story, that’s all people know that’s even out there.” 

As Martin slows down and delves deeper, she hopes listeners do the same and resist the urge to divide into camps based on rigid beliefs of what’s “wrong” and “right.”

“Especially in the United States, there’s something about these issues that people are really seeming to get a lot out of dividing people into camps and pitting camps against each other, and that is very simple,” Martin said. “It’s very effective when you have a binary of, you’ve got a villain over here and a victim over there, or whatever you want to call it, and that’s just not very realistic.”

“I really think we need more space to be able to see each other as human across these divides, and not just reduce down to, well, you work with the oil industry, so I’m going to hate you, or you are a tree hugger, so I’m gonna hate you,” she added. “But instead like, who are you as a person? Maybe there’s something I can learn from you, even if I disagree with you about a lot of different things. And I think that takes time.” 

Now, Martin is looking to bridge those divides beyond the podcast, offering a live show that invites audiences to think deeply together. 

Threshold Live! blends music, story and sound to take audiences from the Australian outback to an Arctic lake and then to the Kenyan savannah, asking what happens when we tune into the life all around us.

“Most of us, when we’re listening to podcasts, you’re either alone or you’re with one other person; your headphones are on, or maybe you’re driving or doing the dishes, going for a walk,” Martin said. “There’s something about this experience of really tuning into the sounds, in particular the voices of all these creatures and stuff, that I think doing it with other people and feeling not only your own reaction, but seeing how other people are reacting feels like it could be really cool and fun and meaningful.”

The live show is based on Threshold’s fifth season, “Hark,” which “investigates what it means to listen to the nonhuman voices on our planet, and the cost if we don’t.” Grammy-winning composer and musician Todd Sickafoose will live-score the journey alongside multi-instrumentalist Jonny Rodgers and audio engineer Sam Moore.

Choosing to debut the show in her “safe space,” Threshold Live! will take place at the Zootown Arts Community Center in Missoula at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 27. 

“This show is not about politics. It is not about the election,” Martin said. “It’s sort of like medicine that I need right now in this time when it is just so intensely divided and feels like they’re going off the rails really quickly. It just feels like a good time to come together and kind of reconnect with what matters most in a calm way, in an open way, and in a way that no one is going to be trying to push any agenda at anybody. It’s just being there together.”

To purchase tickets to Threshold Live!, click here. For more information on Threshold, click here. 

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