I like to go recording early in the morning. It’s a beautiful time of the day and there are less people around!

In August 2021 I was at Treyarnon Bay, Cornwall. Just after 7 a.m. I went down to the beach to record the sea.

After a few minutes of recording, to my surprise, I heard the buzzing of an approaching airborne drone which came straight towards me and then hovered above where I was sitting/recording for some time. Obviously, the drone operator was very interested in what I was up to, but this was not what I had in mind for my recording!

At the time I was quite annoyed that someone was interrupting my tranquil “natural” recording of the sea that I had taken care to record early when there was no one around. This was just the first pass, it came back again and after a few minutes I packed up and moved on while gesticulating in an annoyed manner at said drone. It was probably just a kid staying at one of the nearby camping/caravan sites.

The recording of the sea I made wasn't the best, I was testing out the built-in microphones of my newly acquired Roland R-07, but the attack was recorded for posterity! I wonder if they recorded any footage, maybe it is posted somewhere on a substack about drones!

I had a somewhat similar experience a year later in Pembrokeshire when I realised that it was almost impossible to make a recording, in the National Trust nature reserve where I was staying, without aeroplanes being present! In the end I just accepted that they would be in most of the recordings and the result was my album Flight Paths…

Some field recordists search out the most “natural” of sonic environments that contain no obvious noise pollution, a pursuit which is becoming harder and harder, and is practically impossible to achieve in the UK. You could argue that there are already no environments left in our world that are truly unaffected by human activity and so all sonic environments have already been changed—it’s just a matter of degree.

I am now happier to embrace and document the combinations of natural and human-made sounds as I find them wherever I go. They can be a lens to focus in on some of these prescient issues.

This drone encounter was definitely an important event in my movement towards that acceptance, so thank you annoying drone operator—maybe!

An excerpt of an early morning recording I made in Filey last April (2023) from a second storey window using Clippy microphones and a Roland R-07.

Seagulls make a lot of different sounds.

They can be very loud!

There are many other birds and the faint rumble of the sea in this recording too!

In 2022 I bought an Elektron Digitakt. It’s a sample based drum machine and synth. In the end I only kept it for a few months and then traded it in because at the time I needed something that could work with longer stereo samples.

But I did make quite a bit of music with it during the few months it was here.

One series of works I made was based around triggering six identical samples with slightly different lengths that would then endlessly loop — not using the built in sequencer at all. So the samples would start to phase. I also used the available LFOs to change a range of parameters controlling the filters, panning and effects.

Some setups and samples worked better than others. This track was probably the most successful in that it never seems to repeat and the sounds and rhythms are subtly and endlessly changing.

The amount of variation generated in such a simple setup is quite amazing. I find it a fascinating and somewhat meditative listening experience. Sometimes it becomes quite spacious, sometimes quite intense.

This is a four minute excerpt of a fifty-eight minute track. I’m not sure why I recorded for so long, I imagine I was just listening!

This is a recording of the first fours laps of a Formula 3 race from the 2022 British Grand Prix weekend at Silverstone.

If you watch a race on TV then the sound is continuous as the cameras follow the action around the track but as a spectator it’s a very different experience. The first few laps are very sparse until the field spreads out — you can hear how quickly they stretch out even in four laps.

I like listening to amplified quiet sounds.

Like this “singing” mug held very close to the ear.

I often have one available due to the amount of coffee I drink!

It’s less of an autonomous sensory thing, more like focusing, meditation or listening to a drone.

I like the ceramic sounds.

Hard to record though and this isn’t quite the same, but it’s close.

Added a touch of long reverb for atmosphere.

Scrunched up bits of paper rolling around inside a plastic container.

Flapping envelope windows make a surprisingly identifiable sound.

Looped with reverb and delay.

An artificial sea, rain, wind and maybe even a tent!