What makes that city noise at night? That strangely non-descript hum. That audible presence that seems to be made of nothing and everything, and comes from nowhere and everywhere, and that is so familiar to us city dwellers. Its origin is uncertain. Probably impossible to pin down. City hum does not exist outside of cities though, so that at least explains something. Perhaps that's its charm. That city hum can't be explained. And so why, like other things that cannot be fully explained, it seems to possess some very valuable properties. Especially to those seeking rest.
At night, city hum with its endless lulling flow, seeps in through every window open. Every door ajar. Aural balm, for tired minds. And it greets the garden wonderer, come out to look for stars, with a soft inky black message, that says, welcome, to the night. Welcome, to these tawny roosted hours, watched over by owls. To this other version of the same world, where light shrinks to speckled dots, and all that is, all that is anything, is there to be seen through listening. City hum ebbs and flows. Echoes with night birds, and susurates between countless details across landscape forms. Listening into it, really listening to hear into its depths, can be like counting sheep. Soft city sheep, come to help you listen, come to help you sleep.
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This is a section of an all night recording we made in Exeter a few days ago. It's in the back garden of a house from 1am. It captures the stillness of the city and two tawny owls against a backdrop of dreamy sounding seagulls. Exeter is in Devon, in the South West of England.
219 Country meadow summer breeze
218 Sing dawn - the songbirds of Abney Park nature reserve
217 Upland woods in winter gales (part 2 - sleep safe)
216 Sat on the sand of East Looe beach
215 Calm within Kilminorth Woods
214 Storm over hotel peninsula
213 Sound-scenes we love from four years of Lento
212 Ear witness: innercity woodland peace
211 Nothe Fort at night - quiet swirling waves
210 Watery dell amidst trees at night (sleep safe)
209 Downstream of the old mill
208 Lone tree under windswept telegraph wires
207 Bucolic dell in upland meadows (subtle, slow, best with headphones)
206 Dawn birdsong in the leafy ravine
205 Soundscenes of a changing tide (sleep safe)
204 Rain falls on steep craggy woodland (sleep safe)
203 Dartmoor stream above waterfall gorge (part 2)
202 Upland woods in winter gales (breathe easy and *sleep safe*)
201 Out on Cooden Beach at night (part 2 - night breakers on shingle) *sleep safe*
200 Windswept night in the belfry of Rye Church
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