It's the dead of night. Along an exposed stretch of seawall East of Burnham-on-Crouch, a deluge has started. Rain lashes down from a pitch black sky onto the swirling water of an out-going tide. This is the River Crouch, and the microphones are capturing the essence of this nocturnal estuary landscape, opposite Wallasea Island in Essex.
Bright daytime, on Landermere Creek. Wild water surrounded by green fields and farmland. Gulls, redshank and curlews speed up and down the creek on fast, blustery breezes. In this place there's a strong sense of escape, and of a world where land, sea and weather interlace.
On a rock, closely suspended above a small patch of exposed shell beach at the mouth of the Blackwater Estuary, near Bradwell-on-Sea, the microphones capture the pristine detail of the incoming tide. The way these particular waves move. the way they lap, and hurry along the contoured rocky edges, as the tide slowly rises. It's a sound that no matter where you are, or what you're doing, happens twice a day, everyday.
We stumbled upon a fallen tree whilst walking over Galley Hill near Epping Forest. the M25 sounded further away than usual, so we tied the mics under its steeply angled trunk for some shelter, and left them to record the ambience of the place alone. Some rain falls in large heavy drops, from ominous grey clouds seen from miles away approaching. But this rain didn't. It fell from an open sky, light as it was light grey. Flocks of jackdaws flew overhead, surveying the wide open fields between the outcrops of trees.
We always set out to capture the closest 3D aural experience we can, so with a pair of headphones, you can close your eyes and feel yourself present somewhere else, somewhere perhaps more natural, and peaceful, but without our human presence disturbing the nature that lives there. As dawn breaks over a wood in Suffolk, the mics capture, almost close enough to touch, a rare experience of small furry animals, scampering about with each other, on the crisp summer-dry forest floor.
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Thanks for listening and for spreading the word about Radio Lento, a self-funded podcast helped by listener recommendations and donations. Last May we went to the Podcast Show in London and walked about feeling like ducks out of water! Ad spend, business plans, audience growth and sales. We're typing this in a Youth Hostel far far away, with the mics still out on their overnight record, and being pelted by rain, we feel much better.
Here's where to listen to the full episodes featured in this daydream:
Trains, planes and estuary birds
Night rain falls on a Peak District moorside
Dead of night beside a lake in the Lee Valley Park - sleep special
August breezes through an ancient Oak
Cooling off beside sifting waves at Felixstowe Ferry
Peace beside the tidal Thames near Stanford-le-Hope in the county of Essex
Brutalism and crickets of the A10 flyover
Summer sunrise over a lake in the Lee Valley - raucous birds start the day
Murmurs of the Kerry Ridgeway (part 2) - what rush hour sounds like in the hills of mid-Wales
Arable farmland in the Essex countryside
Suffolk Wood (part 4) - 11pm
A summer walk in rural Hertfordshire - sunshine and showers
Cathedral of trees - the Forest of Dean (part 1)
Early summer breezes
Sound-scenes of ocean waves
Suffolk Wood (part 3) - 10pm
Murmurs of the Kerry Ridgeway
Murmurs of the Kerry Ridgeway
Sleeper train from Paris Austerlitz to Port Bou
Under a large umbrella (rain and thunder)
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