Radio Lento podcast

99 High in the hills amongst snow laden trees - Christmas special

We always try to make a recording in the landscape after it's just snowed. It's so quiet. And the quiet is palpable. The effect is unique and wonderful, and is down to the way freshly fallen snow absorbs sound. By absorbing it so well though, there is virtually nothing for the microphones to pick up, and so none of these recordings have ever properly worked.

Over Christmas 2014, whilst staying with family up in the hills of Derbyshire, it snowed, and snowed, for days and days. And so we recorded, and recorded, for days and days too. Each time, on playback through headphones, the spatial sense of landscape quiet, the effect we strive to capture in all our recordings, was entirely missing. 

A few days later, just before ten o'clock at night, the snow began to fall again. The landscape was frozen, after days of freeze thaw. And this time, instead of absorbing sound, the icy snow was reflecting it. As the snow fell, every tiny fragment and particle of it made a sound, in varying degrees from the finest of fine dust, to sounds almost like leaves dropping, to distinctly heavier scattering ice falls. There was a lazy wind in the trees too, moving through as soft murmuring white noise. Occasionally, it was strong enough to push off the lighter accumulations of snow and ice, causing it to fall between the branches, and down onto the frozen ground below. For the first time, the snowy landscape sounded spatial, and the microphones were able to capture the feeling of being out amongst snow laden trees, within a wide open, and frozen landscape. The old clocks can be heard chiming ten inside the house, and towards the end of this unusually short episode for us, far away geese, and foxes too.

Merry Christmas everyone! From Radio Lento we wish you and your family a happy and sound new year. 

98 A ship that passes in the night - sleep safe

A passing ship, in the night, is like a thought in slow motion. A thought sailing in, from out on the ocean. A thought made of bulk timber upon steel. Made of engine, rudder and wheel. tangible. Omnipotent. But a thought unseen. In perfect dark. In perfect, peninsula darkness.

 

From this place upon the seawall, the nocturnal transit begins, as a warm, pulsating hum. As a low down sound rising slowly, in the east. A vast, timber laden hulk, that to the inflowing tide, feels like nothing more than a drifting feather. To it, a feather adrift. To us, a ship.

 

This soundscape is another excerpt from the twelve hour overnight recording we made last summer in Essex, about seven miles inland from the North Sea along the tidal River Crouch. The mics, which we tied to a seawall railing while we slept in a nearby inn, captured this chance event in total darkness, an event that we feel makes for one of the most compelling listens, of all the river sounds. A passing ship! a ship that comes, and never seems to go. A hum, among the washing waves.

97 Through the trees, distant weir (source of natural white noise - 3D with ear/headphones)

Still air. Quiet parkland. It's 8am, before the people come. Empty paths. Untrodden grass. Mist lifting. On the face of it, nothing is happening. But nothing needs to happen. This is a bright autumnal Sunday morning in late September. 

To the listener, the scene is panoramic, and one enveloped in another kind of mist. Consistent. Never lifting, never changing. From night to day, from month to month, from year to year, a mist made of sound. A flow of pure and natural white noise, infinitely spatial, present throughout every shadowed space beneath the trees. The weir. Its soft surrounding balm.

Lulle Brook is a tributary of the Thames at Cookham, just off the Thames Path National Trail. We heard it from afar, when we first came, long before we knew what it was. A noise on the horizon. A noise with a soft, gravitational pull. In the solitude of the empty parkland, with nobody about, the flowing water instils peace into the air. Widens the sense of space. Throws a canvas on which the birds can paint on their sparse, autumnal calls. Wrens, robins, screeching green parrots, tchacking jackdaws, finches, some distant high passing geese. 

96 A blustery day begins on inland tidal water (headphones)

When we set up to record, there were no signs of the weather front. It was late evening. Low tide. We'd followed the path East along the river out of Burnham-on-Crouch and come across a Second World War armament, a pillbox, overgrown and derelict, beside the footpath. A lookout, that now, and for the last seventy years, has looked and been looking out on nothing more than the to and fro of the tides. Further along we saw a railing sloping steeply down the seawall, and into the water.

 

Gripping onto the railing not to slip, we climbed down. In places the seawall was covered in a fine moss, and felt velvety under foot. Where the rough shrubs and grasses gave way to bare concrete, marked the high tide line. The sky had filled with dusk, and we stopped, to listen. It's the sound-check, the audition, before we can commit the kit. A silent minute, that lets us hear the world far beyond ourselves. Slowly, the main flow of the river's outer edge was revealed through countless thousands of swirling eddies. In the mile wide body of air above, the ding ding dings of redshank, the rasping calls of hardy gulls. It was a good, panoramic place to record, and a scene somehow also shaped by not a sound, but an absorbent mass, the low lying effect of Wallasea Island, far off over the opposite bank, with not a light in sight. 

To make the 12 hour recording, we spent the night in an Inn, half a mile up-river from the microphones. In the dead of night we could hear the yacht masts ringing in the wind, and the rain battering against the window panes, and wondered. What will it be like down at the seawall? Had we gauged the high tide mark right? Will the fluffy hat that we stretched over the kit box stand up to the pelting rain?

This is the section of the recording from between 7am and 8am. rain clouds are still passing overhead, their precipitations sifting down like tiny fragments of grit on the rising water, and as it gets heavy, hammering on the lid of the mic box. Seabirds are all around, mainly in the distance, between the gusts of wind, but sometimes they swoop by very close. Someone passes, up early and on foot, with their scampering dog.  A few planes traverse, softly reverberating through the full width of the sky above Wallasea Island. The hat that we used to help baffle against the constant esturary wind is by now wringing wet, and the wooden box protecting the kit is too, though luckily not inside. What the mics manage to capture though, despite the drenched state of the equipment, is the essence of this wild landscape around the River Crouch, as another blustery day begins.

95 Suffolk Wood (part 10) - a voyage from dawn to day - spacious and subtle - best with headphones

Day has arrived, and there's no mystery about it. Gone the voids. Gone the echoes. Gone the skewed sense of time, magnified, with distance overlapping. 5am, and it's here and there and all about. The present. The world, re-appeared. 

Light has come, yet the wood remains still. It's filled with the anodyne reverberations of the distant A12, reflecting off all the hard surfaces of the trees, revealing in sound the huge interior space that is the wood. Don't be beguiled though! These are the grey blue watery minutes, the slack, before the journey really begins. Stand behind the prow, and lean into this, a quiet voyage, from dawn, to day. 

Slowly, the creatures come. In the leaf litter, they nibble shoots, chase over fallen branches and twisted vines. Gambol around the microphones, as morning children do. They race through the night's re-arrangement of leaves, then stop to bathe in the newness of the wood, re-appeared. Some tiny mammal squeaks, from somewhere near. High in the branches above, the rooks caw, and observe. Maybe they see the cow that lows, in the field beyond. 

And what about the day? Dressed in the cotton soft coos of wood pigeons, embroidered by the sparkling songs of wrens, buttoned with the bright pips of the littler birds, the day is getting ready. Ready to rise up, and in the blue light, blink. Blink, and lift its shoulders wide, and stretch out its neck, for a touch of the morning sun. 

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We made this recording back in August 2017, leaving our microphones to record overnight and alone, in a rural wood, off-the-beaten track. This section is from 5am to 6am. Listen to the other episodes from through the night. 

94 The trees that wait for the chalk stream to flow (natural source of white noise)

Out of the 240 chalk streams globally, 160 are (or were) in England. 

For a moment, I thought I heard a splosh and the whip of a fishing rod. But how? Ankle deep in dusty soft leaf litter, several yards down in the waterless bed of a dried up chalk stream, I craned my ears. There it was again. More of a splish, this time, or was it a wish just uttered, by the trees. They swayed in a gust of late summer wind, and I swayed with them. 

There was someone there. An old man. He was  sitting bolt upright on the bank just beside me, with crystal clear water lapping at his leather boots. He was smoking a pipe, and holding a fishing rod. And he was swinging it in, right past my nose, the most beautiful fish I'd ever seen. A dark silvery torpedo shaped body with proud fin, hoisted and shimmering, in the setting sun. 

A fish! I exclaimed. Aye the old man muttered, from behind his puff of Parson's Pleasure. Just a grayling. It was so beautiful. Where did it come from I said? The wind gusted again in the overhanging trees, and they swayed. Swayed with what this time I knew was a kindly form of long-suffering impatience. Grayling used to live right there, where you are standing now. And many others like them. Mind you, there was a lot more life about when I was around, in those clear flowing waters. 

Before he and the fish vanished, I saw its iridescent soul rise up, into one of the trees. And I realised there, it will have to stay, leaf like, waiting with its kin, until the chalk stream returns.

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We recorded the natural white noise created by these trees a few months ago in the countryside near Newport in Essex. It was a peaceful place, with a tractor tilling a field in the far distance. The trees grew along the banks of what we later found in bygone days used to be a chalk stream. We think of it as a barometer of human impact, and turn to listen to the wisdom of trees.

Chalk streams are rare and fascinating. Find out more.

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93 Rain garden after dark (sleep safe)

Rain. Rain falling in the night. Falling in the night when there's nobody about to hear it. Falling onto a little ramshackle garden made up of upturned pots, a patch of leaf scattered concrete, and a square of grass surrounded by sleeping shrubs and plants. 

A little walled garden, basking under the falling water, still, under grey black suburban sky. Sometimes gusted, by a nosy, billowing  wind. Does the rain know where it's going to fall? 

An old tarpaulin hangs beside the raspberry canes. Beneath, a small piece of shelter. A small piece of peace, tapped by the tiny, scattering drops. Does this rain make a sound, when there's nobody around to hear it?

We hardly know anything of our garden at night. A few weeks ago we left the Lento microphones there, to find out. Under a waxed hat they recorded the passing hours of the night. City slumber, silk softness, and a band of tranquil, spacious rain. In the morning, it was the raindrops caught on the nasturtium leaves, that told the story of the night.

92 Up in the April hills of mid Wales

Up in the April hills of Wales, beside an empty road.
Behind the brambles, down a dell, a stream, over bare stone rolls.
What sing you mistle thrush?

The inbetween of holly trees, is lit by morning sun.
In the field beyond the birches, a thirsty sheep dog runs.
Green beach, open sky, scattered lines of sheep shells. Run run, you thirsty dog, the world's your oyster.
What sing you mistle thrush?

First car of the day, chases emptiness away.
Then another in its wake, lest it dare to stay.
Their bow waves press the brambles in. Their tyres peel gently by.
Their wind sends the dry straw up. It spins. Floats. Then settles down, upon the asphalt, in jumble writing.
Sing, sing, you mistle thrush. Sing your mottled, scuttled, song.

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This is part of an overnight recording we made in early spring 2019, up  in the hills above Kerry, mid Wales. We first thought it featured a spring blackbird, but now know it is a mistle thrush. Chif chaf, wrens, a juddering pheasant, great tits, rooks and wood pigeons can also be heard.

91 When woods go weird

Three years ago we made another overnight recording at the edge of a rural wood. It turned out to be one of those night's when almost nothing stirred, just the faintest susurrations of wind in trees and the occasional crick of a dark bush cricket, hidden amongst the thick brambles that grew around the taught wire fence where we tied the microphones. Nothing happening, for hour upon hour. It seemed it wouldn't make even one episode. 

 

But then, just before the gothic bell clanked the half hour before 5am, something in the air changed. The wood, came alive. The change began with a tawny owl, far off to the left, that began to call. It was soon joined by another, replying in an unusually tremulous way. Their strange mid-distance hoots over time were joined by others. Some close, some farther away. Each owl, materialising in its own silent void of the forest, filled the space with what, at times, can almost be said to be an owl chorus. 

 

It is often said that everything connects, and so it seems. Whether roused from slumber or in some way spoken to, a cow lows back to the owls from the field beyond the wood. There is a timing to it. It isn't rational, of course, but the interaction is there, all the same, to be heard. Passing geese join too, calling down from their lofty processions, and the ducks laugh back at them, from their murky millpond. It is, in all respects, a weird time, a weird scene, from this wood several miles from the A12 in rural Suffolk.

 

Distant bells clank the hour. The parish clock strikes 5. The dark robe of night is slipping away. The dawn is nigh. Awake you wood pigeons. Fly by you large bird. Buzz you giant insect, sounding like two airborne elastic bands. Hoot, and hoot again, you strange owls. Welcome! The August dawn.

90 Wind on water, night curlews, rain later (sleep safe)

Deep and spaciously detailed night quiet, at the edge of the tidal river Crouch in rural Essex. Wind on water. Rain on water. Night birds over water. Water upon water. A real piece of time, captured from one rainy inclement night in August by a pair of weatherproofed microphones tied to a seawall railing in Burnham-on-Crouch.

Over time, and as the weather front rolls in, the delicate shifting movements of the water fill, and become richer and more pronounced. Unperturbed, curlew, redshank and distant geese patrol the black, empty night air. Their calls carry far, in long natural intervals, across the wide open space. It's the waiting, between the calls, that refreshes the mind.

Three step listener guide: 
1. Ear/headphones enable you to hear the detail and panorama of the captured sound. 
2. On a phone or tablet try setting volume in the middle but if you hear nothing nudge volume up, bit by bit, until you feel immersed in the light rippling washes of waves. Not loud, they should feel delicate to start with, because the soundscape is real. 
3. Unlike music or speech audio, playing back the detail and space of a naturally recorded soundscape is greatly enhanced, in addition to headphones, when your surroundings are conducive too. It's the listening equivalent of dimming the lights, closing the curtains and settling down to watch an atmospheric film. These are not sound effects, they are all 100% original and natural recordings from real places.

89 The birds of the leafy ravine - a tonic for tired minds (best with headphones)

We're going back to early June this year, to the rich and intermingled singing of birds that happens at dawn throughout the spring and early summer. In Britain it's called the dawn chorus, a behaviour associated with song birds during the breeding season. 

Captured by a lone pair of microphones tied to a tree, above the watery and precipitous ravine that runs into the infamous Todbrook Reservoir at the Cheshire / Derbyshire border, this segment is from just before four o'clock in the morning. It can be hard to distinguish the different songs, but in amongst the mellifluous tunes there are song thrushes, blackcaps, blackbirds and robins, resonating in the fresh morning air of the ravine. From left to right the watery flow of the stream fills the space, and in the fields beyond, sheep and lambs can be heard. 

At four minutes some things with hooves, perhaps several small deer, scramble past along the precipitous path about thirty feet below the microphones. One small fleeting drama, on the cusp of a perfect June day. Far out on the right, where the valley opens out into the reservoir, occasional echoes of cars spill over from the country road between Macclesfield and Whaley Bridge. If, from inside their steel boxes, the occupants could have known about the dawn chorus from down in this secret valley, maybe they'd have stopped, turned off their engines, and listened to a phenomenon so few of us ever really get to hear.

88 An afternoon at Wrabness (part 2)

Above the mud silt beach, it's all bright clouds, moving. Then the sun breaks through. The river is stretching wide here, left to right, silently carrying the land's outflow through marshes, and out to sea. Warm wind blows in between long spells of calm. Close by, on the tree holding the microphones, and almost within touching distance, small waxy leaves rustle in the summer breeze.

The tide's falling. Wind is pushing against the moored boats opposite and setting them swaying. In jolly colours they rock to and fro, like bath toys, masts knocking, ringing, bell-like. Mid-stream, marine vessels plough comfortably by. As they pass they make slow moving delta waves. V-shaped echoes, that travel along behind, and sideways, expanding, so that eventually, they wash up along the shallow shore, in clean bright, rinsing waves.

Gulls over the water. Wood pigeons in the trees. A mistle thrush too, somewhere far out to the left, Sounding something like a blackbird, still just practising his song. This is quiet time, in a place beside wide water. A place, beneath an open sky, that's not sea nor river, but estuary. Tidal, yet calm. Wild, yet sheltered. A place that's good for afternoon people. 

87 Sky landing - when the wind bends the trees

They look as if they are swimming in it. The banks of trees. Tense into the current, swaying, twisting in sympathy with the changing wind. Like they're wading out into on-coming waves, wading out to be washed in this force of sky, landing. 

And in-between, in the tranquil lulls, resting. Tall. Collegiate. Upright. With leaves still trembling. Equinoctial gales, glanced the highland cattle. Or the vernal winds, as the stalwart sheep prefer. A storm of wind that's come to sweep away the dry husks of summer. That's come to redden the leaves. 

Is it true though? That such thing as an equinoctial gale, is in fact a myth? Myth, roar the trees. A myth, mutter the scattering leaves. You'll have to ask the sky.

Now, the autumn air's blowing in. Along wooded moorsides, up and down the country, the season is changing. Time to blow away the cobwebs. To pack a rucksack, flask and tea. To check the map. To put on coats. To catch wiffs of woodsmoke in the air.

Night tide turning at pillbox point (sleep safe)

High tide on the River Crouch. Night. Not a soul about. Small bobbly waves gamboling along the brimming tideline. Playful, in swilling swirls, reaching for one more inch of land, before the ebb. From the east, a lazy wind muffles. 

 

Tide turned. The surface has begun to calm. Palmful waves bob over each other in glassy melodious slurps. Their thirst for land is over. Retreat not yet in mind, and still nudging the hard ground, they are letting themselves settle to its dry resistance. Night wind softly presses.   

 

The ebb. A grainy hiss of newly exposed land has appeared along the tideline. The water, relaxed, moving slow like a minute hand, is inching back. It's slackened, into tiny, feathery currents. This place is no longer about a shoreline. It's opened. Become panoramic. An aural vista. Wide, silent, tidal river. Far off, murmurs of nocturnal flying curlew, redshank, and geese. And of a low, soporific hum. A ship. In port. Docked, and sleeping.

Afternoon meadow in late summer

Last day of August. Pleasant sunshine, blue sky. Wind 1 to 2 knots, barely noticeable. Standing tall with motionless leaves, the trees are leaning into the warmth, letting their limbs soak up every available ounce of the sun's golden heat. Along the old bridleway, away from the grey noise of a cross-country road, quiet fields are revealed. Knee deep with grass. Waiting to be mown. 

 

A hedgerow, beside a field. All around, the air thrums, with a feeling of wide open space. In the mid-distance, a flock of geese, slowly transiting the open sky. From near in a high tree, a rook calls. It echoes over the fields, a dry bark-like caw that spells the arrival of autumn.

 

In the next field, hidden from view behind a line of trees, a tractor pulls a long wheeled and bladed contraption up and down. It's mowing the summer's grass. Time to make hay. An old propeller plane hums proudly over. It's passage draws a slow, arching line, between the eastern and western skies.

 

Gradually, with nobody around, the birds return.  Magpies, to bully in the high top branches. The tchack tchacks, of scattering jackdaws. A pheasant, its creaky call like an unoiled gate somewhere in the undergrowth. Little birds, perched amongst the brambles, emit short, percussive sounds. The tractor continues to mow. More planes traverse the sky. And all the time, from everywhere and nowhere, the air continues to thrum with tiny, silken vibrations. These are the traces, the most elemental of aural fragments, the leftovers gathered at the edges of human hearing from the action of countless rolling tyres on fast asphalt roads, but that from here, filtered through so many trees and hedgerows, are safely  and forgettably muffled beneath the horizon.