Radio Lento podcast

200 Windswept night in the belfry of Rye Church

Three o'clock has struck. Up steep ladders, on the top platform of the belfry inside Rye Church, the ancient clock counts through this small night hour. Its regular sound blends with long and undulating gusts of fresh sea air. Air that's travelled, over miles of sand, shingle and marshland, from out on the open sea. 

An ever changing pressure of moving air sighs between the shuttered rafters. Rattles the steel flagpole outside on the castellated parapet wall. Resonates down inside the tower to the ringing chamber below, as a soft, dark, velvety rumble. And though without any form, not least arms and hands, somehow lifts and knocks the dead weight of a loose slab of exposed stonework. 

When the wind slackens, am amazing thing happens. Not only does the presence of moving air seem to disappear from this aural view, but much of the structure of the belfry too. A kind of transparency comes about, and a panoramic image appears. Of the surrounding landscape beyond. Subtle. More like the presence that a hanging silk curtain creates than any nameable sound. Fabric like, and thin. but definitely there. And you know when you're hearing it because instead of the tower, you feel all that there is around you, are the panoramic murmurings of the land that is Rye and Romney Marsh.  

* Our grateful thanks again go to Revd Paul White of St Mary's church at Rye for enabling the Lento boxes to be left to capture the quiet inside. 

199 Moorland forest mid winter gales

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Twilight's coming. And a storm. To be half way up a lonely Peak District moor, off the puddled track, looking down, into a mixed plantation of tall murmuring trees. Scots pine and spruce. Tall, hushing conifers. Veteran stunted oak. And ancient holly bushes. Each tree catches the wind. Transposes its undulating energy into different, and distinctive shapes. Sound signatures. 

Between the trees, a paddock. And two sheep, grazing on wet winter grass. And their small wooden hut. For when it rains. Partly obscured. Partly filled with hay. Partly forgotten. But not by the robin. Or the song thrush. Or the watchful rooks. 

This forest knows a storm is coming. Like the sheep, busy with their grass, but patiently waiting. Like the robin red breast, busy too, defending his territory. Like the song thrush, perched up on a favoured branch. 

Though way up the moor, this place is not entirely out of touch. Planes do pass in that weatherless zone, high above the cloudbase. And Land Rovers do too, engines labouring, up steep lanes, distantly. But to the eye, there really is nothing, for miles. Just an open sky. And steep plunging fields. And green sodden ground, that in the summer months will spring into luscious meadow. And over the waterlogged ground, a trail of empty boot prints, that we left behind as we walked away. Away from the holly tree, and the microphone box that we carefully tied and angled, so it could be an ear witness of this forest, in winter gales, before the storm. 

198 Fishing village harbour at night (part 3 - wide open peacefulness)

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From here, steep up a winding path above the harbour, the ocean waves crash onto the ancient seawalls of St Abbs on the east coast of Scotland, in full spatial detail.  Swirling currents of bouncing swell, softened by less than a hundred yards, into a rich textured white noise emulsion. Clean, simple, washing  waves. 

Nocturnal seagulls in dark night air. Come and go. Circle and call. Here here here, I am, says one. There there there, you are, says another. Here here here. There there there there, they cry. Lillting cries. Reflecting across the sky. High above the waves.   

Soon, from somewhere out along the jetty, a dark shadow begins to hum. Begins to send warm vibrations out into the empty ocean air. A marine engine, started. Thrumms harmonious, like two organ pipes. A muffled thud here. A muffled thud there. Echoes of those at work, preparing the vessel to sail. Hauling heavy oiled ropes off squat steel capstans. Needing to be coiled. Needing to be stowed.

What are we to make of this quiet and empty place? Is it here to be explored, or is it here just to be heard? Heard, just as it is. And just as it was, on that still August night. Under that perfect quiet sky. One boat. One sea. One, fishing harbour at night. Remote, on the east coast of Scotland. 

197 December rain light to moderate (sleep safe)

The rain came down, in the early hours of this morning, as I write.  Lovely rain. Light to moderate. Temperature 7. Dew point 4.  Wind EastNorthEast, gusting 8 knots. Enough to drift the ice cold raindrops. And ruffle the leading edge of the wide tarpaulin, that we've stretched over our back yard for shelter. And to make the rain sound better. More detailed. More spatial.  

Nobody was there though. To witness. To feel the emptiness of the night, or hear how the rain drops fell. Nobody apart from a couple of distant birds. Night birds, that we've noticed on many nocturnal winter recordings do seem to sing. Dreamily, at this time of year. As the solstice approaches.

Now. With headphones on. With time set aside, we can be witnesses to how time passed in this place. Invisible witnesses, physically sitting, here, but mentally conscious of being there. Alive and aware of being present in the captured quiet of somewhere else. an empty and uncluttered place,  where the winter rain fell.

* this quiet was captured at 4am on Saturday 9th December 2023, in north east London. We pointed the Lento box out over a long line of little back gardens. It's an area that hums like a city, but that also murmurs, especially at night, under the influence of the ever changing weather, and the wide open sky. 

196 Estuary bleak passing ship

Warm inside an all-weather coat. Facing out across the water. Sat, boots wedged against the top ridge of the slanted seawall. There's rain in the air. Thirty minutes to take in this wild estuary place, you tell yourself. 

Right of scene the small Essex town of Burnham-on-Crouch. Directly ahead across the water Wallasea Island. Low lying. A vegetated slip of green land and an RSPB nature reserve. Left of scene wild swirling water stretches seven miles to the North Sea. Sit tight, here on the seawall. This is empty time, to listen to the landscape.

Wind from the east flattens the inflowing tide. Presses down the surface into shallow shifting wavelets. Translucent wavelets, that wash briskly along the concrete footings of the seawall. As time passes, and so very slowly, a warm hum slides into view. Harmonious. Reassuring. It's a ship. A ship approaching. Gradually, it draws level. Gradually, it crosses your line of view. Then, with clear water ahead it increases power. On a heading out to sea. 

This landscape is sparse. Beautiful. Bleak. Ektachrome bleak. 

* This is the very last segment of an amazing overnight recording the Lento box captured several years ago from the seawall just east of Burnham-on-Crouch. When we came back to collect the box it was waterlogged and we feared the whole recording was lost. Somehow it survived which makes all the episodes captured from this incredibly exposed location extra special. Listen to all the other segments in episodes 86, 90, 96, 111 and 126 - all listed in our post on episodes from Dengie.

195 Tranquility found on England’s highest railway station

Dent station lies on the historic Settle to Carlisle railway between Blea Moor Tunnel and Rise Hill Tunnel. It's the highest operational railway station on the National Rail network in England. The highest and we feel the best because it is so extremely wide open. So extremely exposed. Set in the North Yorkshire Dales National Park, Dent station serves at 1,150 feet above sea level, in stalwart public service. 

Up here is real wilderness. Rugged upland wilderness. A place that's persistently buffeted by fresh, cuffing wind. Air, that like the trains, travel free and at speed over marathon spans of mostly uninhabited land. But there is a tree, by the old wooden gate that leads onto the station platform. 

The tree has grown squat. Leans from the prevailing wind. Has countless myriad leaves. Waxy well weathered leaves, that the Lento mics tied to its gnarled trunk captured rustling, and jostling, in the brisk undulating breeze. And beyond these spacious rustlings, grazing sheep can sometimes be heard. And high circling buzzards. And other little birds too, through time. 

You can if you want choose to stand beside this tree, whilst waiting for your train. Don't worry the platform is only just there. And beside the tree you can so witness what to an urban dweller is rare. A tranquil environment woven not from silence but from affirmative sound, that inside our minds spells peace. Mental peace. A wild landscape that flows in through your ears. How everything sways. Sways this way and that. Never against. Only with you. And the ever undulating wind.

* We left the Lento mics alone on the tree outside the station gate last August. It was a cool and brisk summer day. The next train back to Settle was in an hour so we walked up the fell to see what we could find. We found a remote fir forest, which sounded so good we had to go back the next day to record it. You can go to this fir forest in episode 183.

194 Inside a bird hide

The atmosphere inside a bird hide is quite unusual, as interior spaces go. Low wind moaning in the drooping wires between telegraph poles. Whispering rushes and siffing seed heads of marsh grasses. Indistinguishable shifting murmurings, of the surrounding landscape, blown in through low letterbox windows. To the ear there is a lot of outside to be heard inside a bird hide. A fleeting curlew. A humming propeller plane. A distant pair of passing footsteps on the gravel towpath. 

But there are other sounds from inside to feel too. Interior sounds. Flurried sounds, made by internal things under external forces. Rattling shutters. Knocking slats. Timber panels grumbling. All set moving by wayward gusts of estuary air. And inbetween. When outside has less to say. Perfect, hidden, tranquility. 

As you sit quietly, on the wooden bench. And peer out through the narrow viewing slots to see what you can see, face brushed by fresh gusts of air, maybe just for a moment you realise what a bird hide is. A building trying not to be a building. A place trying not to be a place. A shelter that wants to hide you, but not be in your way. Spoil your view. Of the low tide water. The wide exposed mud flats. The silent birds, picking light footedly over the mud. 

193 Slow waves in the night quiet (sleep safe)

It's always strange when we leave the Lento box behind to record overnight. The feeling is strong, but also hard to pin down. The Lento box feels like a trusted friend, even a family member now. It has taken us years to build and refine, and lives on the shelf in our kitchen when its not out on a job which makes it more than just an object. It's travelled far and wide with us too, and made almost every episode published on Radio Lento. Will the box be there when we come back, is of course the one thought we've had to learn not to worry about, because otherwise Radio Lento and all the places that have been captured in panoramic binaural sound would not exist. 

As we walk away from the box, tied to a remote tree or sturdy post, we always stop, turn around and check for one last time whether things are right. Will it be safe where it is? Have we located and angled it to capture the best panoramic "sound photograph" as possible even though we can't know what is going to happen. Is the spot really the best we can find? These thoughts are often whispered, because being out in remote locations at night never does feel comfortable.

The night we set up the Lento box in Weymouth to capture this episode ran very much the same as every other night record. The tree we found in a quiet secluded shoreline spot felt mysterious in the inky dark under a full moon. Like it somehow knew we were there. The sea, only yards away, also lapped knowingly against the jumbled rocks, and the air seemed unusually still. So still in fact we could hear even the tiniest details of the shifting waves. Climbing the tree so the panoramic width and sharp detail of the sound-view could best be captured wasn't as risky as it might seem in total darkness, but positioning the box on a tree that felt like it was aware of us did somewhat heighten our own sense of self. Of course we needn't have worried about any of this. 

After we left, the tree and the sea, weren't worried. They accepted the Lento box for what it was. A non-human aural witness. And so were content to carry on as they always have. For all of time. A tree just being a tree. The ocean waves just being ocean waves. Lapping with patience and grace, against the rocky shore. Such slow waves, alone, in the night quiet. 

192 Remembering summer on the Hoo Peninsula

The experience of being out in the wide open on Higham Marshes in Kent on a warm May afternoon is nothing short of glorious. It's a perfect location for the Lento mics too. Earlier this year we walked through the nature reserve en-route to the old fort on the Thames and left the Lento box to capture the sound scene of the Higham Marshes nature reserve from a little hawthorn tree in full scented blossom. We shared part of this sound-view in episode 169. Here's the other part of that same recording, kept back until now, for a time we really need to travel back.

The Hoo Peninsula is today an edgeland and a place of environmental dichotomies. A vast area, where giant operating container ports rumble on the same horizon as silent half buried war relics of the past. Where fields of managed land abuts wild margins of natural unmanaged land. It's a world navigated via long winding and sometimes contradictory footpaths. Paths that one minute are rubbish strewn smelly boot thieving bogs exposed to the aural effluent of distant industry, and the next, grassy and dry under foot, tranquil, shielded from all human noise. Wandering ways, lined with verdant vegetation. Filled with exotic sounding birds.  

For some reason the body seems to adapt to this dichotomous terrain before the mind does. Though the contrasts are not as stark as they may seem when written down. In fact it's these edgeland contradictions that really make the Hoo Peninsula, particularly the area between the old fort and Higham Marshes, so sensorially fascinating. Of course eventually the mind does catch up with the body. And the feelings are good. Of sensory bathing. Bathing in meadow scents. In exotic bird calls. In happily humming insects foraging from plant to plant. In the timeless sound of baaing sheep and grazing cattle tearing up fresh meadow grass beside lapwings, cetti's warblers, skylarks, geese, ducks and red shank. The sheer density and diversity of creatures audible from this little tree hidden on the marsh, is really something to behold. And the way they exist between the human made anthropogenic noise, is something to behold too. 

191 Moorland waterfall (sleep safe natural white noise)

An hour of pure falling water in a natural wide open landscape. Captured in the early hours of yesterday morning in the hills of Derbyshire. A place off the beaten track. Up in the hills. Rugged. Reached by a steep up climb holding for balance on arm-thick sapling trunks, whilst stepping between winding deer tracks. 

An old holly tree stands amongst many other trees, facing the waterfall. We hang the Lento mics off one of its outstretched limbs. Angle them out so they can hear across and beyond the waterfall. A profusion of hard ferns growing up from the rocky pool softens the intensity. Down stream hart's-tongue ferns line the banks, and rustyback ferns cover time-toppled dry stone walls. This unmanaged upland environment is filled with vegetation and clean refreshing sound. 

When embarking on a long listen like this, the sound view may at first seem, well, just white noise. Pure white water noise. Not much else. But time does something. The auditory brain gradually tunes in. To tune in, headphones are needed as they are designed specifically to project binaural sound directly onto the left and right eardrums (with no room-gap). The left and right inner ear then carries the soundwaves layered with complex spatial cues (here the waterfall and surrounding environment) into the auditory brain where a mental picture is formed. These soundwaves, having been authentically captured using ear-like microphones at a real location, can trigger a similar aural and perhaps even physical response to the experience of actually being there yourself. It's why we say "surround yourself with somewhere else". 

This sound-view is of the waterfall, to the left. Partly hidden behind trees and beds of hard ferns. The stream flows in front of you left to right down the moor, to the valley that opens out to the far right. Ahead and below the holly tree holding the mics is the drop pool where water faintly gloops and gurgles. And sometimes very tiny clicks can be heard from left and from right. Probably the branches of the trees 'resting' down as they do in the cool night hours. This process where the boughs of a tree rest down by around fifteen degrees makes subtle noises, and is when dead wood most often drops down into the leaf litter.

The auditory brain is our constant 360 degree survival sense that's evolved over a million years giving us a powerful non-light dependent way to alternatively 'see' the world around us. Spatial hearing has evolved in tandem with sight and our brains construct our perceived reality from both senses together when out in the natural world. Even though modern ways of thinking are heavily anchored to sight, by investing just a little quality time in natural binaural listening you can tell it taps into something subliminal and evolutionary. A calm threat-free natural environment like this one beside a remote waterfall, just does feel good. There's no need to wait for scientists to tell us why.

190 St Mary’s Church in Rye

We're hugely grateful to Revd Paul White of St Mary's church at Rye for enabling this special recording to be made.

An aural presence of St Mary's church. Captured through the night of the 3rd of October. This passage of time is as it happened, from midnight to 1am. Experience being in the nave, then perched high in the belfry looking down from the top ledge upon the bells, including the 'quarter boys' that strike the quarters. There's a wonderful old timber beam to rest against, so don't worry about the drop.

This sound-scene of St Mary's unfurls over an hour and between two slow alternating perspectives, each lasting about six minutes. It starts in the nave where the congregation gather for services and prayer. Then glides up to the belfry. 

Due to the extreme intensity of sound in the belfry (the sound of the main bell carries for miles) the sound scene during striking is from the perspective of the nave. On the very last strike, the perspective blends back up into the belfry, letting you witness the singing of the main bell as it fades away. (Note The clapper can be heard knocking slightly against the bell, as it settles back to rest after striking one.)

The church's clock marks each second passing with a crisp resonant clunk, as it has done for many centuries. Indeed it is one of the oldest church turret clocks in working order, first installed in 1561-2. The pendulum visible above the nave was added later. (Read more about St Mary's fascinating history.) 

The belfry is at the top of the church tower, and is a narrow space very much exposed to the elements. The clock's mechanism can be clearly heard from up here, together with the pressure of moving air as it presses through old rafters, and rocks heavy roof panels. To the right the flagpole outside vibrates against its sturdy mooring. The melodious strike of the quarter boys is close and clearly defined from up here inside the belfry.

In contrast the nave is a large spacious and sonically reflective space. High ceilings and wide stone floors. It's where the congregation gather for service. From here the main body of the church can be heard, shouldering the weather in soft, hushing reverberances. A peaceful place, for people, time and prayer. 

Please note that this is NOT a sleep safe episode due to the bell chimes and clock mechanism. It is a rare chance to hear such an ancient space at night with the sound of the clock inside and the wind raging outside. 

189 Night rain falls on a drystone wall (quiet and sleep safe)

There, thought the old drystone wall. I knew it. A tawny owl. Flying silent, up top the field. It'll only be a shadow, if ever you do get to see it. 

Better get to where you're going my feathered friend. The rain's coming. Not long, I'd give it, what, five minutes before the first shower.  A flurry. That's all. At least to start with. Night minutes mind. 

No! Night minutes aren't slower if that's what you're thinking. Nothing like that. No they're just, different. They don't run in a day-straight line. Night minutes spiral. Like the way currents on a slack stretch of river move. You know, in slow drifting circles. Sends your mind round in circles too if you let them.

They pass alright despite them going round in circles. Not sure how that works, it just does. All you have to do, to go along with them, is concentrate. Not concentrate on counting them. You do it by listening. All around wide about listening. Listening, without expecting or waiting for anything particular to happen. Do it by keeping your mind free of expectations and instead let whatever the world has for you, come to you, just when it does. 

Now call me an old drystone wall, which is what I am, but even I know half the problem these days is that when you set your mind on something you want to happen, you miss the simple pleasures the world has for you while you're waiting. No, it's not patience I'm meaning here. Why be patient. I'm not and I've stood sturdy here for centuries. It's diligence. An active process, of careful, and persistent listening to what is there. In the place you want to be.

* This sound view was recorded from the top of a drystone wall overlooking fields of nocturnal sheep, in the North Yorkshire market town of Settle last August. Rain comes and goes. It's a very ordinary field in many ways, and not far from a very ordinary sounding B road with some occasional night traffic on it. Combined with the odd soft arching plane, the sound view exudes a pleasantly harmonius aural fabric that is soporific and sleep safe.

188 Rock seat on Rye Harbour beach

Near a limpet covered wall, beaten into shape by high tide waves and squally weather, are some rocks submerged in shingle. Rye Harbour shingle.

Sun warmed, they've got just enough flat on top, for two to sit. And enough yards from the water too. For you not to get wet. And yet, from time to time, you do. But only a speck, thrown by an exuberant wave.

Advancing waves keep rolling in. Splashing and breaking, as much onto each other as they do onto the smart grey contoured shingle. Splashing and breaking waves whose sound is as bright as the light of the midday sun. From your smooth rock seat, you can hear the tide's not far now, from the turn. 

A tiny bead's landed upon the back of your knee-rested hand. One speck of cool ocean. You dab it away. Its translucent shadow feels like a winter penny in the brisk sea breeze. 

* We made this recording a few days ago on a warm October day at Rye Harbour beach in East Sussex. The sun was crisp and strong, as was the onshore breeze. One of the most wonderful feelings is scrunching over the different bands of shingle, as you head down to the shore, because of how the sound changes. 

** Thank you to everyone who supports us on Ko-fi.

187 Steam train stops at country station

You strode up to this field, through lush meadow, for a better view over Arley station. And now you're here. It's a perfect Shropshire August day. Blue sky. Light breezes. Hot sun on your back. Nearly time you think looking up into the sky, far right, for any sign of smoke. 
 
The whole station's in view from up here. Here beneath the tall whispering trees, and basking grass crickets. There's the empty waiting tracks, lined by high overgrown hedgerows. And a man down there. Hammer. Nails. Fence beside the gravelled track, being sporadically mended. Such a country scene. With such balmy country sounds. Benevolent. Timeless. There, watched by the circling buzzard. Chased away by rooks. 

And when it first came from over the horizon, it announced its imminent arrival with a blast on the whistle. Mile wide, its sound waves travelled. Through the cutting it then proceeded. To emerge like a resplendent surprise from under the old stone bridge. A heavily rolling, clanking, iron mass of hissing pressure, that gently squealed to a halt in the waiting station. 

As it waited for its passengers to board, it pressed against its wood block brakes, radiating heat. And a slowly building, smouldering hiss. And the whole valley seemed to brace itself for what it knew was about to come. The bridge and the sloping fields. The trees. The road. The buildings and even the sky. All braced themselves, to be turned inside out. Turned into a steam train dream. 
 
A steam locomotive, to give it it's proper title, does not so much depart a station, as leave it in its wake. Its iron furnace contains such pressure, that when its valves expose its pistons to pump the girders that turn the giant wheels, it's not just the air that's kneaded like a dough, but the whole world around it. It's a palpable sense of power that so surpasses anything you can have imagined, that all you can do is grin. Whilst fixed to the spot. In enchanted admiration. 

* We took this sound photograph of a steam train passing through Arley station last month. We recorded in high definition sound. After the train left, we left the box recording alone, to take in the soft rural wind in the trees, the crickets in the grass, the man mending the trackside fence, and all the other sounds of ordinary everyday life going on in this Shropshire valley.  

186 Slow forest Wyre valley

What happens, inside slow forest, is not much. Just the odd snap and crack, of a dry twig dropping, every now and then. 

I know sometimes there is a rook. And I know a raven too, if you've managed not to fall asleep. And echoes. Of passing people on the trail. And of seagulls and roosting wood pigeons too. Every now and then.  

No, not much happens, in slow forest. Apart from the wind in the trees. And the buzzing insects. And the distant farm. And the plaintive cries of what we might imagine is a lonely juvenile bird. 

But slow forest, is the place to go, if you want to hear a forest just being a forest. It's so huge. And so empty (not counting the trees) that most of what you hear is just, forest. Trees being trees. Leaves being leaves, in the changing wind. And the changing wind, just being a changing wind. 

* We captured this hour of forest time by leaving the Lento mics alone on an old tree last month deep in the Wyre Forest in Worcestershire. Two planes doing a loop-the-loop can be heard steeply descending around the middle section of the recording, and the echoing whistles of a passing steam train as it travels along the Severn Valley Railway can be heard towards the end.