Episodes

Saturday Aug 08, 2020
Peace beside the tidal Thames near Stanford-le-Hope in the county of Essex
Saturday Aug 08, 2020
Saturday Aug 08, 2020
Forty minutes walk from Stanford-le-Hope railway station, along residential avenues and a service road that leads to the nature reserve, past a single story brick built municipal transformer station that hummed in the hot afternoon sun, down a stony footpath where we stopped to pick blackberries and over the freight railway line to the nearby London Gateway deepwater container port via the level crossing, we found this hidden away beach. It is set back from the main channel of the Thames in a small bay. The beach was empty except for one other family. We put the microphones to record in a sheltered spot and retired to brew tea on a camping stove, then relaxed to the lapping waves and the sound of the children playing happily in the sand. This is almost twenty four minutes of pure bliss As the tide goes out and the waves change. The engine of a marine vessel moored some way off emits a low bass note. Occasionally a deep industrial thud can be heard from the container port. Towards the end the mud slightly fizzes as it is exposed to the air. A lone bird calls faintly as it scours the fresh mud for food. A propellor plane hums distantly over in the South West.

Saturday Aug 01, 2020
Brutalism and crickets of the A10 flyover
Saturday Aug 01, 2020
Saturday Aug 01, 2020
Beside the A10 flyover in the Hertfordshire countryside, crickets bask in summer heat and road noise. The flyover has been designed to reduce the noise and impact of the road across the valley. It isn't perfect. Leaks in its noise barriers made the passing traffic sound like objects shooting along a tube. From a certain angle the cars seem to vanish in mid air. Far over on the right, as cars join the bridge on stilts, each makes a loud thump, like a giant see-saw. This is a section from the start of the New River Path between Hertford and Ware. **Re-issued in high-definition sound.**

Monday Jul 27, 2020
Summer sunrise over a lake in the Lee Valley - raucous birds start the day
Monday Jul 27, 2020
Monday Jul 27, 2020
The Lee Valley reservoir chain comprises thirteen lakes that separate the London Boroughs of Haringey and Enfield to the west from Waltham Forest and Essex in the east. The area is made up of marshes and parkland, rich in wildlife, including woodland and water birds. This recording is of the dawn chorus around 5am when nobody is around. It was captured by a pair of microphones looking out over the lake from a tree that overhangs the water's edge in the Fishers Green Nature Reserve. It starts gently, water birds dabbling around for food, and builds up over 40 minutes to swirling raucous gulls and flapping flocks of geese taking off and landing, against a backdrop of woodland birds from the surrounding area, and the sound of distant traffic on the A10. It's a surcluded spot on the soily bank, almost close enough to dip your feet in, hidden under trees, an ideal position to listen to life on the lake.

Monday Jul 20, 2020
Monday Jul 20, 2020
Over the hills above the sun is going down. It's been a warm dry April day along the Kerry Ridgeway. High pressure, light breezes. It's late afternoon and cars, tractors, farm vehicles and the odd lorry rattle past. Hidden behind hedgerows down a steep bank a timeless stream flows under trees. It is alive with birds. The ground is ankle deep with dry leaves. Occasionally a roving bee comes along, to look at the microphones. This is a secluded spot in a wide open landscape of steep fields and woodland.

Sunday Jul 12, 2020
Arable farmland in the Essex countryside
Sunday Jul 12, 2020
Sunday Jul 12, 2020
Along a narrow footpath that threaded through wide open farmland we came across a lonely outcrop of young and exposed oak trees. Their dry leaves hushed and rustled and hissed in response to the changing strength of the wind. It blew quite strong at times. We set up the microphones to record. The occasional lilting bird calls are from a buzzard, a broad-winged hawk that was circling the area. About five minutes into the recording a tractor began mowing a neighbouring field. These are the sounds of nature, the wind and of a worked landscape. At the end the buzzard flew right over us as we came to collect the microphones.

Monday Jul 06, 2020
Suffolk Wood (part 4) - 11pm
Monday Jul 06, 2020
Monday Jul 06, 2020
Inside the wood the ambience is changing from evening to night. Now it is owned by the crickets, hidden in carpets of leaves. Muntjac deer move about softly. Twigs and dead branches drop surprisingly often into the soft ground with a thud. Aircraft of indeterminate origin over-fly the wood at high altitude. Owls call. The parish church strikes midnight near the end. Deep listening with headphones helps to uncover the qualities within this recording.

Monday Jun 29, 2020
A summer walk in rural Hertfordshire - sunshine and showers
Monday Jun 29, 2020
Monday Jun 29, 2020
Yesterday on an ancient bridleway that runs through open farmland, just before the rain clouds caught us up, we stopped for a picnic on the edge of a wheat field. As the clouds approached we recorded the sounds of the strong breezes playing in the dry wheat and through an outcrop of trees. The wind dropped and we carried on walking along the bridleway as the rain fell, scattered through the leaves of the trees that line the path either side. The sun came out, the air became heavy and humid. Crickets signalled to each other, hidden in the thick grass,

Monday Jun 22, 2020
Cathedral of trees - the Forest of Dean (part 1)
Monday Jun 22, 2020
Monday Jun 22, 2020
About a kilometre into the forest we left the microphones strapped to the trunk of a huge ancient tree. The spot was well off the beaten path and opened onto a natural clearing with a cathedral like acoustic sound. This recording starts just after 9pm to capture the sound of twilight turning to dark. At 33m there's an owl. More at 40m. Then the strange call of a woodcock.

Monday Jun 15, 2020
Early summer breezes
Monday Jun 15, 2020
Monday Jun 15, 2020
On a warm breezy walk in the Essex countryside, we left the microphones in a tree at the top of a rarely used bridleway to record the sound of the wind. The tree was one of an outcrop that lines fields of barley and home to a robin. High above the fields are skylarks, not a common sound these days. In the distance there's the odd ice cream van too in the Lea Valley Park. It's a lovely spot to get away from everything and soak up the warm sun grassy freshness and summery sounds. Recorded in June as London's first lockdown started to ease.

Monday Jun 08, 2020
Sound-scenes of ocean waves
Monday Jun 08, 2020
Monday Jun 08, 2020
On-shore wind cuffing at the ears, breakers hauling at pebble banks, walking over shingle ridges to greet the incoming tide. Soft sands, waves retreating leave fizzing foam to dissolve over seaweed at the strandline. Wading ankle deep in warm lazy seawater rippled into dizzying motion by the breeze. Heavy waves lug at the quayside wall clicking with barnacles. Five scenes: 1. Rye Harbour England. 2. Brighton Beach England. 3. St Just, Cornwall and then 4. a sandy beach on the Adriatic coast Italy. 5. Fowey Harbour England.

Friday Jun 05, 2020
Suffolk Wood (part 3) - 10pm
Friday Jun 05, 2020
Friday Jun 05, 2020
The crickets the wind in the trees make the softness of this wood. This is the hour up to 11pm. Starts with 10 minutes of a loud muntjac deer barking very close to the microphones. Owls in the distance follow and creatures creeping about. Two distinct gun shots at 15m 30s. At 30m 24s a pheasant scared calls out very loudly. The peace returns for the remainder. The church clock chimes 11 near the end.

Monday Jun 01, 2020
Murmurs of the Kerry Ridgeway
Monday Jun 01, 2020
Monday Jun 01, 2020
In a remote spot just below the Kerry Ridgeway in Powys Mid-Wales, where a stream runs along the bottom of a wooded gully beside a country road, lies some rural peace and tranquillity, and what must be the murmurs of the Ridgway, voiced in the trees. The Ridgway is an ancient trading route between Wales and England that never drops below 1000 feet. Recorded on a sunny afternoon in April 2019, catch the sheep being fed, occasional cars and farm vehicles passing by on the road above the gully, and the infectious call of the early blackbirds amongst chif chafs, hedge sparrows and wrens.

Monday Jun 01, 2020
Murmurs of the Kerry Ridgeway
Monday Jun 01, 2020
Monday Jun 01, 2020
In a remote spot just below the Kerry Ridgeway in Powys Mid-Wales, where a stream runs along the bottom of a wooded gully beside a country road, lies some rural peace and tranquillity, and what must be the murmurs of the Ridgway, voiced in the trees. The Ridgway is an ancient trading route between Wales and England that never drops below 1000 feet. Recorded on a sunny afternoon last April catch the sheep being fed, occasional cars and farm vehicles passing by on the road above the gully, and the infectious call of the early blackbirds amongst chiffchaffs, hedge sparrows and wrens and bees.

Sunday May 24, 2020
Sleeper train from Paris Austerlitz to Port Bou
Sunday May 24, 2020
Sunday May 24, 2020
Experience the mesmerising sound of the world passing by, recorded from outside and inside a couchette on a SNCF sleeper train one August night. Departure is from Paris Austerlitz just before 11pm. The train journeys through the night and takes 12 hours to get all the way across France to reach Port Bou in Spain. Hear the announcements and the train pausing in the early hours of the morning at Toulouse.

Monday May 18, 2020
Under a large umbrella (rain and thunder)
Monday May 18, 2020
Monday May 18, 2020
June 2016. A summer thunderstorm is passing over North East London. The atmosphere is electric. It's the final hour of polling in the referendum to decide whether the UK remains or leaves the European Union.
Sheltering under a large umbrella in the back garden of our little terrace house, listening for the next roll of thunder. Long expectant gaps. Sharp pin prick drops landing in hundreds as brightly spatial clicks on the taught fabric. Then, slow crumpling rumbles that open up the vastness of the sky
Listener notes: this audio is recorded using high quality binaural microphones. They fit into each ear and capture very accurately the way we spatially hear sound. The only way to properly listen back to a binaural recording is using a pair of headphones. Set the playback volume low and gradually raise the volume until the level feels about what feels realistic in your experience of being out amongst the rain.