Radio Lento podcast

• 285 Late October on Chesil Beach (sleep safe)

  The making of this high-definition sound photograph of Chesil Beach began thanks to the number 1 bus from Weymouth to Portland. As we stepped aboard, the sky felt low. Folded and layered with grey October cloud. Rain was in the forecast so we'd taken raincoats.  After twenty minutes and the final stretch across the exposed coastal road, the bus pulled into our stop. On the way the views of Portland had struck an impressive sight, pointed bravely out to sea. It felt blowy off the bus as it always does here, but no rain, yet. We crossed the road, then up and over the largest shingle berm of any coastal area we know. Dropping down more berms, scrunching over more acres of perfectly rounded pebbles, we and the Lento box finally arrived at the shoreline. Here is a soundscape that's beyond description. It takes a few minutes to acclimatise. Aural textures and flows wash around and through us, folding and layering like the clouds above. We'd forgotten how everything about this place engages the senses. Redefines what's normal. Resizes us into what we are. Tiny individuals, standing upon billions of even tinier stones. The rain never came. Instead windows of blue opened and closed between the folds above. As the mics captured the scene The onshore breeze remained steady, letting the Lento box record every spatial and textural detail of the Chesil waves, only light winds buffeting. The sea glowed turquois blue against the ruffled grey sky. Each rolling wave then turned pure white, as it broke over the beach of rich brown pebbles. The shore here stretches as far as the eye can see. To left of scene. To right of scene. Turquois. White. Brown. A unique place, with a unique soundscape, crystal clear, free of interfering noise thanks to the giant shingle berm. * We made this on-location recording on Chesil Beach in Dorset just after 1pm on Wednesday this week. Special thanks to our friends and Lento supporters who live in Weymouth. They gave us a lovely welcome and a warm tea stop on our travels to make this recording. We feel it's one of the best sound captures we've made so far of Chesil Beach. further segments to follow in future episodes from this same location.

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• 284 The wind of Long Mynd

  Reaching the top of Long Mynd in rural Shropshire requires a good steady climb. The rocky footpath winds up and up, and so must you, if you want to get to the top. Most people do, as much for that sense of physical achievement gained over an hour or two, as the views. 360 degree panoramic views of all that makes this whole area so special. But before you get to those views, there are many other fascinating sights to be had on the way up. And not only for the eyes.  Long Mynd is both a wild place and an area only lightly impacted by overflights. Once you are within the dramatic contours of this ancient landscape it is likely you'll encounter periods of near pristine quiet. Pristine quiet activates something fascinating in us, something we normally can't engage. Heightened aural awareness. Heightened aural awareness lets us fully connect with the landscape via our sense of hearing.  Hearing is a kind of touch sense. While we can feel the wind as it buffits against our faces and bodies, we are thanks to the wind, able to perceive trees and grasses even though they may be a hundred yards away. Wind presses through their physical shapes and structures producing sound vibrations that then physically land on our eardrums. It's like we are touching them, even though they are beyond the reach of our hands.  The higher you go up Long Mynd, the more you and the landscape are exposed to the elements. The wind surges stronger and stronger. Where the narrow and very steep footpath threads along the edge of rocks and a plummeting drop, the wind cannot be ignored. It is physical, and it is enlivening. It enlivens us, and it enlivens the trees and grasses. the birds. The hardy sheep as they graze the upland pasture. The tiny grasshoppers and crickets, only heard when the wind drops.   * We made this recording up on Long Mynd back in August. It's perhaps our most precipitous recording location so far! We carefully attached the box to a dramatic hawthorn tree overhanging one of the many sheer drops, just off the footpath. Hikers can be heard passing up and down the stony path. Right of scene the wild landscape slopes steeply up. Left of scene slopes steeply down into the valley below. Centre scene are trees on the opposite side of the cleft. Sheep graze on steep ground below the tree for a while, and a raven or large crow briefly passes. We think there's a stonechat there too. It's very difficult to capture sound landscapes in the face of such powerful wind gusts, but the wind really is the very essence of this wild place, and so we've made an extra effort to sonically balance the hugely varying loudness levels in this recording and share what we hope is a listenable sound view of Long Mynd in beautiful Shropshire.

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• 283 Night trees of Boggle Hole (sleep safe)

  Robin Hood's Bay on the North Yorkshire coast feels remote for England. It lies at the bottom of a very steep road that descends down from the road between Whitby and Scarborough. The sign at the top of the village warns sightseers interested in a look not even to try driving down. With virtually no traffic noise and the whole area under a quiet sky, we knew this was a good place for the Lento microphones. The lane (we walked, obviously) winds very steeply down, passes a few little shops, a pub, a grocery shop with a jar part filled with fizzy drink to catch the wasps, and ends in a ramp onto the beach. Perfect waves break. Perfect because every detail can be heard cleanly, and precisely. No road or plane noise to get in the way.  Robin Hood's Bay was not actually our final resting point. For this we needed to walk about a quarter of a mile over the sand to the Youth Hostel at Boggle Hole. Delightfully named. Perfectly located.  Access across the beach is only possible when the tide is out. You know you're close when you reach a rocky stream that flows down from the cliffs. The last stretch, harder work. The stream is not walking boots friendly, uneven stepping stones look fun but need a confidence to use.  The Youth Hostel is tranquil. It really has the most peaceful surroundings of anywhere we've ever stayed. Above the hostel is a wooded area rich with rustling trees. As night approached we followed a tiny footpath up in between the trees. They swayed and hushed in the onshore breeze flowing up from the beach. We found a tree with a good trunk and tied the Lento box on to capture the sound of the night. * This section of time is captured in the woods above the Youth Hostel. It's from 3am, early August. Weather conditions are warm and dry, with moderate winds gusting to strong. Dark bush crickets live amongst the trees. They can be heard all through the night. They can, if you feel like it, provide something nice to count, like sheep, to help you get to sleep.

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• 282 Night train to Paris (sleep safe if you like trains)

  The environment within the cabin of a sleeper train is, well, unusual. Quite contradictory. It feels empty when you first step in, but full seconds later. It has a dead quiet feel, whilst also being noisy. It affords little physical space to move about in, yet anything you accidentally drop ends up out of reach. It would feel claustrophobic too if it weren't also strangely spatial when the lights are out. It has bareness and simplicity that somehow affords comfort. And the cabin often rocks about, as do you. The sound-feel within the cabin is unusual too. To start with there's rumble. Rumblings that roll constantly while the train is in motion. Sudden low frequency thuds and judders, as the carriages roll over joints and points in the track. There are regular pressure bumps in the internal air caused by trains passing close by in the opposite direction, and multiple strong humming sounds from the air conditioning and electric motors operating the train. Delicate sounds too. Tiny creaks and subtle shiftings in the fabrics and panelling that line the cabin, especially the ceiling which is made of flexible sound-absorbing slats.  To be conducive to sleep you'd have thought the cabin ideally needs none of this. Yet there is  an intense stillness. And during your considerable time in the cabin, twelve hours and more, these aural qualities interact, and form into their own rhythms. The mental chemistry of it all reacts to produce soporific calm. Set against my knees (as I slept) and the side wall of the cabin, with no inches to spare and bed clothes pushed up all around which would normally scupper any spatial recording, the Lento box recorded as the "night" began. Sleeping on a sleeper train is not like any normal night of course. The whole world around you is moving, rocking, as is everything in the soundscape. And yet you get your head into the comfortable hinged pillow (the back half goes up forming a bump protector) and you enter into a long aurally enhanced doze, that may, if you are lucky, become proper sleep.  Listening back the Lento box captured a true impression of being in a sleeper train cabin. Including occasional bed covers shifting and one of us popping out of the cabin briefly which is all part and parcel of the sound experience. This passage of time is somewhere between 3am and 4am. The train is speeding steadily across France, passing through lamplit towns and cities as it rolls on through the night. (It's hard to resist sleeping with the window blind part rolled up so you can witness these truly marvellous scenes.) The journey on this SNCF service is over 850km, departing Cerbere station on the extreme southern coast of France at 1850hrs, arriving Paris Gare d'Austerlitz at breakfast time the next morning. >> We've just shared three minutes of video of the train gliding through the night. Watch on our YouTube. 

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• 281 Night rain in the Pyrenees (sleep safe with chimes)

  Beside the only road leading out of Sant Llorenc de la Muga we found a small group of trees. We didn't have much time. The sky was pitch black and the ground beneath our feet was streaming with water that'd all come down a few minutes ago in a deluge with simultaneous flashes of forked lightening so powerful, so bright, they'd temporarily frozen us to the spot. We shone our torch from tree to tree, searching for a suitable trunk that might provide some shelter for the Lento box. The road was deserted. Traffic was not an issue. Only one more village lay beyond, where the road literally ended.      A patch of bare trunk came into view between rain soaked leaves. Around us every thing glistened. And dripped. Every shrub. Every branch. Every leaf.  To the eyes and to the ears it was a rich sparkling sensory experience, that seemed interchangeable. Reaching through we tied the Lento box onto the trunk, angled it onto the wide landscape scene, and left it to record alone through the night.  This segment of time was captured from just before 3am to just after 4am. Heavy rain falls and the sky periodically grumbles with thunder, but eventually it eases off. To the right of scene one and sometimes more tiny beeps can be heard from time to time. We aren't sure what creatures make these delicately fleeting sounds. Frogs perhaps, lizards, or insects? The sounds are both soft and yet very distinguishable in the soundscape, and comforting for some curious reason. The medieval clock on the church of Sant Llorenc strikes the quarters and the hours through the night. Ancient bells seem even more enchanting when heard in the dead of night, and through crystal clear rain.

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