Radio Lento podcast

There are spacious places in the world, where outcrops of woodland can be heard singing together in strong winter gales. Upland places. Uninhabited places. Naturally exposed, where the upper reaches of the land meet with the sky. 

Singing, to trees, does not involve what we have as vocal chords, or hitting the right note, or picking the right moment to come in. The wind is the conductor. The choir are the trees. The voices are the trunks, branches, twigs, and leaves. Basses. Tenors. Altos. Sopranos. 

The physical form of each tree is complex and varied, in thickness, texture, shape, and give. The more slender the form, such as a twig, the more it gives. Each shapes the flow of the wind, in particular ways. Each creates vectors. Lattice patterned chords, invisible, made of nothing but turbulent, vibrating air. Take just one tree. One form, that sings with ten thousand different voices.    

In a wide open landscape, where three audibly separate outcrops of trees can be heard all at once,  all catching and turning the wind into sound, a sense of three dimensional space can be heard, and felt. Heard, as vast banks of air move over wide expanses of ground. Felt, as deep dark rumbles. As rich brown surges. As delicate, detailed whisping textures. Rising. Falling. Rising. Blending, from one aural shape, into another. 

* We made this recording at the end of December, leaving the Lento box alone and overnight, whilst up in the Peak District. We're really happy the Lento box was able to capture this sound scene so perfectly in the strong winds. 

The night we captured this soundscene of Cooden Beach in East Sussex, there was a brisk onshore breeze blowing in from the west. West is to the right of scene, where the incoming waves can sometimes be heard making first landfall. It's February. It's coming up to 11pm. The sky is a deep dark velvet, and the clean sea air, is hovering around 6 degrees centigrade. Nobody is about. 

Centre of scene is due south. The open sea. Behind, the whole of England. Just over a mile and a half to the west is Normans Bay. Two miles to the east is Bexhill. It's a coastline defined by shingle. Vast sloping fields of clean rounded stones, stretching from horizon to horizon. 

On such an overcast night as this. Moonless. The landscape can no longer be defined by its horizon. To our sense of spatial hearing, and being within thirty yards of the crashing waves, the world is transformed into a wide textured canvas. Heavy greys and shadowed browns across the lower half. Brighter, crisper, scattering  greys, just above the mid-line. Every breaker there, as it makes landfall. And there, as its form collapses into spray. Still there, as it rattles and hauls the loose shingle back with it.  There, and there again, always in different places. From left to right. Endlessly overlapping. Endlessly renewing. Night breakers, on a shingle beach.  

* This is the latter half of a one hour recording we captured on Cooden Beach last February. Hear the first section in episode 155. In 2021 we captured the shingle of Normans Bay in episode 63 and the essence of Bexhill in episode 66. 

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. 

(Hello if you are new here! We're a different type of podcast. Here's a few tips about how to get the most out of listening to Radio Lento.)

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. 

(Hello! We're a different type of podcast. Before you listen, here's a few tips about how to get the most out of listening to Radio Lento.)

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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.