Spanish Sundown

Announcement

There's a good reason you aren't hearing your regularly scheduled episode today.
Stay tuned!
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© 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.

Manuela Malasaña: I Didn't Mean To

In today’s story, Carlota is partying with her boyfriend Lucas in Madrid’s Plaza Dos de Mayo square. Carlota loves Lucas, but sometimes he does…stuff. Stuff that pisses her off so bad, all she can see are the dark spots of irritation behind her eyes.
When she touches the iron fence around the statues of Captains Daoíz and Velarde, Carlota travels back to 1808 Spain and meets Manuela Malasaña, the 17-year-old embroiderer who died in the uprising against Napoleon’s occupying forces.
They called her a national hero.
But was she really?
And is Carlota really guilty of what happens to Lucas if she can’t see through the dark spots behind her eyes?
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1-Check out the location of Plaza Dos de Mayo here.
2-See Eugenio Álvarez Dumont’s 1887 painting of Manuela fighting alongside her father here. You can visit this painting at the Prado Museum of Madrid.
3-See the sculpture Death of Manuela Malasaña by Antonio Moltó y Lluch here. You can visit it at the History Museum of Madrid.
4-See Goya’s The 3rd of May 1808 painting of executions ordered by Murat (at the Prado Museum) and The 2nd of May 1808 at the Fundación Goya en Aragón (complete with Mamelukes). You can truly feel the terror.
5-Check out our website or follow Spanish Sundown on Facebook and Instagram to see original footage taken while researching and recording on-site at Plaza Dos de Mayo. Join our community!
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© 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.

The Tablada Sanatorium: Lorca's Reckoning

If someone hurt a person you loved, how long would you be willing to wait to make them pay?
In today’s story, guest actress Khephra C. White introduces us to a nurse named Helena. She toys with her favorite golden brooch with red rubies while she waits at a lonely hospital.
When a new patient named Alfredo arrives, he tries to take her piece of jewelry.
The voices inside the brooch take them both back to Granada in 1936, where they meet the poet Federico García Lorca just as Civil War breaks out in Spain.
It turns out that Helena and Alfredo go way back.
Way, way back.
And Alfredo might want her brooch…but Helena wants her revenge even more.
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1-Don’t forget to vote Spanish Sundown for the Audience Choice Award in the UK International Audio Drama Festival! This kind of recognition would help to put the show on the map and make it last. So, if you’d like to show appreciation for my work, Spanish Sundown stands a real chance of winning and voting only takes a second. I’d be so grateful! Voting form available here.
2-Khephra C. White cowrote this episode and voiced Helena, Carla and narration. Check out her IG account to see her work as writer, actress and comedian (she’s hilarious—if you’re in Madrid, go see her shows): @darqueroast
3-See the location of the abandoned tuberculosis sanatorium here. If you are able to visit in person, swing by the restaurant with the chimney smoke on the other side of the lonely trucker highway—it feels like the only inhabited building in the otherwise abandoned town.
4-Read Federico García Lorca’s biography here, read a bit of his poetry here, and read some of his plays here (they’re all good, but Blood Wedding/Bodas de sangre is one of my personal favorites).
5-Check out Spanish Sundown’s webpage or our Facebook and Instagram accounts for footage of Khephra and me while recording and doing on-site research at the sanatorium. Drop by and leave a comment—hearing from you makes my day!
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© 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.
 

Processionaries: The Rash

Every spring in Spain, the pine trees are covered in nests the size of a fist with the texture of a rotten cobweb. Out of these nests come caterpillars, called processionaries.
These caterpillars are poisonous. Their hairs provoke a rash that can last for several days.
This rash spreads. Like a poison.
In today's episode, Estrella is ridding her backyard of these pests. When her shovel strikes an owl skeleton, she travels back to 1970s Robledo de Chavela, when the town was held terrified hostage by a ghost in the medieval church cemetery.
A cemetery overrun by processionaries and their poison.
Estrella discovers that the poison doesn't just spread; it becomes a part of you.
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1-See the bio of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, nature expert and journalist, here.
2-Here's a link to Robledo de Chavela on the map, where our story takes place.
3-Check out Spanish Sundown’s webpage or our Facebook or Instagram accounts for footage of Robledo de Chavela, the church where the owl hid, and processionaries in my own backyard (ew). While you're there, join our community; I love hearing from you!
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© 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.

UK Audio Drama Festival - Lore & Crime

Spanish Sundown has been shortlisted for the 2026 UK International Audio Drama Festival! Playing with 26 countries, 16 languages and 60 dramas. Uh...how cool is that?!
You can see the full list and listen to all the fantastic shows here.
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While we're on the road, check out one of my favorite shows: Lore & Crime.
You can subscribe on the show's website, on Apple, Spotify or Amazon.
Follow Lore & Crime on Facebook and Instagram.
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Remember to check out Spanish Sundown’s webpage, Facebook and Instagram, where you can also join our online community.
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© 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.

Los Verracos: Shrooms and Toros

2,000 years ago, indigenous Celtic Vettons inhabited the Iberian peninsula. They carved statues of bulls and wild boar made of stone, many of which can still be found today. And they participated in religious rituals involving what we would call magic mushrooms.
When the Romans swooped in, they burned and sacked the Vettons' villages.
Do you always root for the underdog? What if the underdog...stops being the underdog?
Warning: this episode leans heavily into the horror.
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1-See a map of ancient Vetton territory, a reconstruction of their village and the verracos here.
2-The most famous verracos are in Guisando (Ávila). Check out the site's official IG here.
3-Look at my own pictures of the verracos I took while recording and researching the episode. You can see them on Spanish Sundown’s webpage, or on Facebook or Instagram, where you can also join our online community.
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© 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.

Los Cucurrumachos: Let Me Belong

Every year, the villagers in the remote mountain town of Navalosa in the province of Ávila dress as cucurrumachos for Carnival. They don loud cowbells and wooden masks with curved bull horns that sprout from the temples.
A fun game. Cucurrumachos don't really exist, after all.
Dani is lonely. Like a quicksand sinkhole in his gut, his loneliness consumes him from the inside out.
When Dani puts one of these bull horn masks on, it takes him back to 12th-century Spain. He meets the maker of the mask, a man from northern Spain who immigrated to Navalosa to repopulate the region after King Alphonse defeated the Moors.
This man shows Dani that cucurrumachos are real. He teaches Dani how to cure his loneliness.
A terrible, terrible cure.
Because once you call the cucurrumacho...it never leaves.
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1- See the location of Navalosa here.
2- Check out the Máscaravila webpage, the association that promotes this cultural tradition in many different villages all around the Gredos mountains in Ávila. If you're in the area during Carnival, right before Lent, you can see it in person.
3- I took some crazy video and photos of the festival while researching and recording for this episode. Still haunts my dreams. You can see it on Spanish Sundown’s webpage, or on Facebook or Instagram, where you can also join our online community.
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© 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.

Palacio Canto del Pico: Entitlement

In 1915, Count José María del Palacio y Abárzuza stole a statuette of St. James the Greater from the grave of 15th-century Spanish royalty. In 1969, this figure appeared in the New York Met Museum.
How did it get there? The answer lies with the Count’s mansion: Beak Cliff House, or Palacio del Canto del Pico.
In today’s story, we meet David. David is a nice guy. Too nice. In a world where everyone always feels entitled to take, he gives.
When his snotty boss makes him hide a mysterious USB drive from the police, he embarks on a mission of corporate intrigue that takes him straight to the Count’s abandoned mansion.
There, he finds a statue of the Virgin Mary. The voices trapped inside show him the fate of the stolen Spanish artifact and introduce him to the Count, a weird little American man named Arthur Byne, and even William Randolph Hearst.
He stops giving.
Because David is entitled to take, too.
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1-A link to the New York Met page showing the catalog entry for the statuette of St. James the Greater, currently in the museum’s possession.
2-The official webpage of the Carthusian monastery in Miraflores where they recount the theft.
3-The location of Beak Cliff House or Palacio del Canto del Pico up on a cliff in Torrelodones, Madrid.
4-A picture of Arthur Byne with his weird little beard thing.
5-A picture of the Count as a young boy.
6-Los prodigios de Gillingham by José Francisco Rodil Lombardía. Our mansion, stolen loot, bribes to Francois collaborators and Nazi colluders all appear in this novel. See a summary here.
7-Check out video of the creepy mansion I took while recording and researching the episode. You can see it on Spanish Sundown’s webpage, or on Facebook or Instagram, where you can also join our online community.
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Subscribe to listen to friend podcast Counterbalance here! You can also check out their Facebook or Instagram.
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© 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.

Retiro Duende: Mad Love

A strange little man is spying on Isa in Madrid's iconic Retiro Park.
It's Valentine's Day. And Isa hates Valentine's Day. Because people are trash.
When the tiny duende's hiding place is revealed, Isa is forced to join forces with a stranger and confront one of her greatest fears. The voices trapped in a magical flute take her on an action-packed journey to the 18th century, where she explores the Retiro when it was a private garden that belonged to King Phillip V. Why is this mad monarch turning into a frog?
In this Valentine's Day special brought to you one day early, Isa learns that not all humans are garbage. Some of them are pretty cool. One of them...might even be worthy of love.
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1-Remember that you can listen to Spanish Sundown on Apple!
2-The IMDb profile for La vida breve, a dramedy about King Phillip V's abdication to his son (hilarious).
3-The location of the duende in the Retiro. He sits on top of a cage that used to house live bears--a sort of "zoo" that I'm very glad doesn't exist anymore.
4-Check out video of the beautiful Retiro Park I took while researching and recording this episode (complete with the duende). You can see them on Spanish Sundown’s webpage, or on Facebook, Instagram or Reddit, where you can also join our online community.
© 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.
 

San Pedro de Alcántara: Atonement

“Normally, when you change the IV bag, you’re supposed to check the expiration date and contents, but in this case, well…we don’t really care now, do we?”
A nurse decides which patients need to atone for their sins, and why.
He’s on a righteous mission. Right? He’s doing the right thing. Isn’t he?
Yeah, he’s definitely doing what needs to be done.
For sure.
After finding a cilice that belonged to Friar Pedro de Alcántara, the voices trapped inside bring him back to 1562.
He joins the priest atop his donkey on a journey through the nighttime forest of Ávila, fighting off the demon of sleep. His only weapons are knotted cords of rope and prayers muttered through toothless gums.
Is this guy insane…or on the fast track to sainthood?
The voices teach our nurse that he might just be the one who needs atonement.
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1. Visit the Museum of Salamanca official website here and their IG account here.
2. Check out images of San Pedro de Alcántara and the surroundings I took while researching and recording this episode. You can see them on Spanish Sundown’s webpage, or on Facebook, Instagram or Reddit, where you can also join our online community.
© 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.