Seven Inch SoulSeven Inch Soul

Seven Inch Soul joined SomaFM in 2014, fourteen years into a network Rusty Hodge launched in February 2000 after running a micropower transmitter at Burning Man and experimenting with online radio since 1995. It broadcasts from the converted San Francisco warehouse the station works out of now, funded entirely by listener donations and carrying no advertising at all, which is what lets a channel built around one long-obsolete record format keep a permanent slot on the schedule.

The programming is classic soul, funk and R&B taken from the original 45rpm era — Motown, Stax, Atlantic and the independent labels that grew up around them. The channel trusts the recordings and lets them run without commentary, and on a format where almost every side was cut to be the single, there is very little filler left in it to skip past at all.