Surround yourself with somewhere else. Captured quiet from natural places. Put the ”outside on” with headphones. Find us on Bluesky @RadioLento. Support the pod...
259 Night rain under a large tarpaulin (sleep safe)
Sometimes, when persistent rain is forecast overnight, we place the Lento box out in the back garden on a long battery to capture the sound. Falling rain is always enchanting, especially at night when the city is asleep.
We leave a large tarpaulin stretched across the yard to catch the raindrops as they fall. We position the microphone box centrally, angled up, so as the rain falls at random across the 4 metre by 3 metre surface. It captures a widely spatial sound-image of the rain.
Somewhere very high up in the clouds, there is a special place. It's directly above the tarpaulin. The droplets that form here will not fall unwitnessed, as rain normally does. The droplets will instead fall down into this episode. To soothe and calm many ears. This night rain. Under a large tarpaulin.
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40:17
258 Tidal breakers on Winchelsea beach (high definition spatial sound)
It is almost high tide on Winchelsea Beach. Old timbers, buried in the shingle berm, point up into the hazy winter sky. You scrunch over the stones. Rest your hands on their sturdy weatherworn tops. And begin to take in the scene.
Clean sea air cuffs against your face. It smells faintly of salt, of sea wetted rock. The beach rakes sharply down into bright white froth. Then just blue-grey, out to the horizon. Nobody is about. Only distant shapes, of coasting sea birds.
Each wave comes and breaks onto the shingle. Some roll in straight. Others from the side. Some cross. Some break twice. Some rise slowly up, overbalance and crash in one thunderous crump onto the hard shingle. Others race furtively towards the land, as if they can't wait to meet it. Together, over time, they paint a picture in sound, of this mid February beach, under a wide open, winter hazy sky.
* We took this sound capture of the beach between Winchelsea and Rye Harbour a few days ago. The scene captures the weight and detail of the tidal breakers, and is best "seen" through headphones or Airpods. A little propeller plane flies over, and almost at the end a curlew can briefly be heard flying from right to left of scene, towards the Rye Harbour nature reserve.
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30:18
257 Dawn birds of The Kielder Forest
This spatial sound-scene of dawn birdsong was captured from deep within the Kielder Forest, a huge wilderness of fir trees in the far north east of England almost at the border with Scotland.
Along with most all of our 257 episodes, this audio was produced by leaving the Lento box to record alone on-location, over a long span of time. By listening back to the captured audio we pick out sections that best convey the aural richness and presence of what it was like to be present in that place. These sections then become the episodes.
What you hear sounds strikingly real. We designed the Lento box to capture sound binaurally, in an unprocessed and realistic way. It lets us experience that aural sense of being present in the landscape. Ear-witnesses to the authentic passing of time.
This unaccompanied recording method means we can "hear there", but not "be there". Being there affects animals, birds and insects. By not physically being there they can behave normally. They move about, communicate, sing, forage, free of being alarmed or inhibited. Thanks to the Lento box, we are able to witness what it sounds like to be in their world.
This recording was made last May, amongst tall fir trees growing beside a rough track that runs into the forest, East of the reservoir. Willow warblers are most prominent, along with wrens, song thrush and other woodland birds. A cuckoo is just audible at 15 minutes. At 38 minutes two heavy creatures lumber by and scramble into the cover of the trees. Hearing how they traverse the space reveals just how careful they are being to avoid detection.
One of the main reasons we travelled up to the Kielder Forest last year was to capture the evocative sound of wind moving through vast areas of fir trees. While the wind was not particularly strong at the time of this recording, the tall fir trees can still be heard in the wind, and producing that richly restorative and evocative hushing sound.
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49:00
256 Gulls and emptiness along the Creel Path
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The Creel Path, used by generations of fisherman to get from Coldingham to the coastal fishing village of St Abbs in the far south east of Scotland, is a thousand years old. It crosses an exposed coastal landscape, with rough pastures lying either side. Over the last century the addition of a telegraph wire, strung out along timber poles, may be one of the only significant changes to have been made to this narrow stony path.
The Lento box is tied to a squat broad leaved tree along the path. It's facing east into a wide open field, and beyond that is the sea. Mid left of scene about a third of a mile away, a sense of the waves can be heard rushing into the harbour of St Abbs. To right of scene fields stretch inland with distant sheep and late season lambs. As time passes the engine of a fishing boat softly thrums the air. Gulls almost constantly wheel and circle across the emptiness of the sky. A quiet sky, free of human-made noise. A sky sounding like it must have always sounded, over centuries.
* This sound capture is from an overnight recording we made in the summer of 2022 when we last visited St Abbs. This section follows on from the nocturnal scene captured in episode 208. Now morning has broken, and the gusting wind that swept over the path in the night hours has settled. Gentler gusts occasionally blow through the tree, revealing its presence to the listener. Rain clouds are coming, but for now the air sounds bright and clear.
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54:08
255 Quantock trees in late October air (night and sleep safe)
A wide open landscape, under a dark October sky. Remote. Naturally quiet. Witnessed from behind a lone cottage hidden between tall graceful trees.
It's just rained. Drips are falling from the old slate roof into an overfilled drain. Time passes. Somewhere far off, mid-right of scene, an owl hoots. It's call, carried on the wind from rolling fields below.
These late season leaves, so present in their rustlings, have seen the whole year through. They're soon to drop. Join the soft damp ground, and turn, slowly, to soil. For now though, while they wait for the weather to brittle them dry, their last job is to give voice to the ever-changing wind.
The Lento box listens, takes in the scene, beneath the trees, on a garden table made of iron. The table is surrounded with ornate iron chairs. We have left it to record all night while we are asleep. To capture the aural essences of this Quantocks landscape, as time passes, with nobody around.
* The first segment of this overnight capture is available in episode 245.
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Surround yourself with somewhere else. Captured quiet from natural places. Put the ”outside on” with headphones. Find us on Bluesky @RadioLento. Support the podcast on Ko-fi.
UK