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:
125 May rain in the Forest of Dean
124 Midnight waves by the sea fort at Weymouth (sleep safe)
123 A sound-view from Orcombe Point on the Jurassic coast
122 Forest bathing in the cathedral of trees
121 On Portland Bill
120 Secrets in the spring air - inland coastal country
119 Dawn chorus in the rain high in the Derbyshire hills
118 Lullaby sea by Nothe Fort (sleep safe)
117 Dartmoor birds through white noise mist
116 Sissing plantations in open country
115 Coastal city sleeping (sleep safe)
114 Crashing waves at Durdle Door
113 Spring’s here in mild valley
112 Suffolk Wood (part 12) - 7am to 8am
111 Soundscenes of estuary rain
110 Rain falls in Banfield Wood
109 Here at the river’s edge
108 Song thrush sings in twilight gales
107 Shellness bleak where land meets sea (best heard with time and headphones)
106 In time the wren will come - Murmurs of the Kerry Ridgeway
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