Up steep steps from the sandy beach, and a birds-ear view of ocean breakers from a thicket, perched half-way up the cliff. Several hours to go before low tide. Directly ahead slow rolling waves, breaking over outcrops of large craggy rocks.
It's the dead of night, here on Coldingham Sands. An empty, uninhabited land, under a sky of almost astronomical darkness. An area of land mostly free of human things. Quiet, enough to hear the rumbling undersides of the breaking waves. Time. Gradually shifting contours, as the tideline recedes.
We captured this natural aural landscape and all its uninterrupted spatialness last month near St Abbs in Scotland. As we walked the cliff path to set up the equipment late the previous evening, the silence in the sky was the thing that struck us most. It created a palpable, almost velvety sensation in us. This sense of silence is not, as we've discovered, a purely aural experience. It's something that seems to be felt rather than heard, although it does come from what is heard. Microphones can't record silence, they can only capture actual vibrations, and silence is the absence of vibrations. What's come out from this particular sound recording expedition though, is a very precise sound-picture of the shapes, over time, that waves make as they first roll onto the rocky margins of land. Silence is for sound recording like good light is for photography, the more there is, the greater the detail that is captured in the picture.
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
199 Moorland forest mid winter gales
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Your Sleep Guru Podcast
Anxiety Slayer™ with Shann and Ananga
Men Do Talk Podcast
The Dr. John Delony Show
On Purpose with Jay Shetty