Radio Lento podcast

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

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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. 

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. 

* 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.  

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. 

This onshore breeze. A pleasant one, will not cuff too much against your ears. It'll flutter. Like a dark brown feather quivers, on a current of moving air.

It'll be steady too. As a pleasant onshore breeze is. As the horizon is, from whence it came. Rising, at its centre. And falling away, almost imperceptibly either side of its farthest edges. A constant. And a consistent presence that lets your skin know just how endless the space is. Out there.  

A strange thing though. Worth noting. Worth remembering, for next time. How an onshore breeze is unchanging. While it comes from out there, from the wide open endless sea, and while it lands upon the shore just as the incoming waves do, it does no advancing or receding, like the waves do. No hauling back of the shingle. No pulling away making you feel your love is about to be lost only, seconds later, to be found again. No. Because with the onshore breeze, you always know where you are. It's constant. Cool yet convivial. Makes the time spent on the beach feel real. Right. Restorative. 

* We took this 30 minute sound photograph on Chesil Beach by Portland last April. Its the second take of the beach from a different location to episode 163 but taken shortly afterwards on the same day. Placing the Lento sound camera pointing directly out to sea, about fifteen yards from the breaking waves, the scene captures not only the steady on-shore breeze, but the deep visceral and spatial sound of the receding waves as they haul back huge quantities of the smooth, very heavy kind of shingle, that this section of Chesil Beach is made of.

Miller's Dale. Steep sided. A valley in the Derbyshire Dales with magnificent contours. High rocky outcrops. Sheer faced cliffs. Green fields plunging down to a quiet, winding river.  

It's a place where geologists go, to see the evidence of lava flows from millions of years ago. Where historians go, to marvel at Victorian viaducts and tunnels cut by hand in the 1800s. And where weekend people go to trek or cycle through open country along the disused railway lines that used to carry the trains between Manchester and London.

Miller's Dale feels cut off from the world. Alive in the moment, but somehow separated. As you wonder its winding and overgrown footpaths, you sense the valley is a place not only of restorative solitude, but a place where you are free to imagine yourself conscious in another time. Another era. Hearing the echoes of a rumbling steam train, chuffing northwards with Victorian haste. The meek baas of sheep, grazing on wet Iron Age pastures. Or the tide of the bygone sea, that the composition of the rocks shows this landscape almost unimaginably used to be.

Now the sound of water flowing is from the river. the River Wye. How steadily it runs, along the valley bottom. Open country water, that along the shallow stretches rills, pleasantly, over tumbled stones. Cool. Refreshing. Consistent. Rilling in watery melodies, if you let yourself listen for long enough.

* We left the Lento mics alone, hanging from a steeply leaning tree, to capture the spatial sound of the River Wye flowing through the night. Some planes are audible in the sky, possibly more than usual for 2am, due to a major air traffic control breakdown the night before.

High, in the remoteness of the Cumbrian hills above Dentdale, with buzzards circling overhead, we found a fir forest. 

The hill was steep, so we stopped to take in the view behind. It was then we heard the forest. 

Nearby, we found a path. It led into the forest. 

* We left the Lento mics alone to capture the undulating sound within the heart of this forest. At 29 mins a freight train can be very distantly heard as it rolls through Dent railway station farther down the moor. Or the fell, as the locals say. From ten mins in a buzzard can be heard circling directly overhead. Dentdale is at the western end of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.