Radio Lento podcast Hugh Huddy

The time has come for hot sun. Hot sun and basking. Hot sun and basking, and listening to crickets. And just sitting, amongst the crickets taking it all in. 
This sound scene is of the landscape around Arley station in Shropshire. Under high trees in full leaf. Golden fields as far as the eye can see, glowing in the afternoon sun. Farmland gold. And farmland birds. Bobbing crows. Wood pigeons. And a buzzard. Distant farm machinery working the land.  Distant children playing beyond the station. Distant echoes, that roll across the horizon from a departed steam train that can be heard in episode 187.
Down the field there's a man working. Hammer and nails. Knock knock knock. From post to post he goes. Slowly repairing the fence that runs between the hedgerow and the railway line. Knock knock knock. And a rest. And a glance up, at the circling buzzard. No rush. It's hot. There's all the time in the world for this. 

It is hard to believe this is North East London at dawn. And yet it is. 5am, last Wednesday. Day break, on the 1st of May. Misted air, barely a breeze. Verdantly breathable air, filtered and cleaned by the dense surrounding woodland. When at 8am the park gates are unlocked, the people will come to walk the winding paths. Bathe in the atmosphere created by the trees. And breathe the restorative, country clean air. 
This is what a nature reserve within a city does. It purifies the air, not just for the lungs but for the ears. Layers upon layers of veteran trees soften the city rumble whilst providing a myriad of roosting spots for the songbirds to sing. And as they sing, their mellifluous sounds echo and reflect off all the boughs, branches, and countless leaves, to form an aural brilliance that is wonderful to behold. 
But behold the brilliance we rarely do. Rarely can do. 5am is not when most of us are around or want to be around. And perhaps, for the sake of the birds and their own sense of freedom in the trees that are their home, that's not such a bad thing. 5am is, shall we all agree, their time of day. Their chance to be on their own amongst their own kind. Be themselves, and be in the world, in their own particular way. Capturing an hour of this world, as it happened, and on a day when the sky was relatively free of planes and the nearby roads relatively free of traffic and sirens, is what the Lento box was there to do. Here is that hour of time, heard from behind the gates of the newly restored chapel at the heart of Abney Park nature reserve. Our special thanks to Abney Park for allowing us to capture the dawn chorus from the chapel. We recorded this episode exactly three years after our last recording just before the major restoration project started in the chapel. Listen to the dawn chorus from inside the chapel in 2021, in episode 68. And more episodes from around Abney Park here.  

In winter gales amongst moorland trees at night. Dark sky. Empty of everything, except for the invisible moving wind.   
A moor slopes steep up to the right. And half a mile of grassland slopes gently away down the valley, to the left. At the bottom, is a reservoir, hidden behind more trees. This grassy spot along a high gritstone wall, near an old iron gate, looks from the lane like any overgrown corner of a Peak District field. But it isn't. It isn't just any spot. It is a seat in an amphitheatre of specially arranged wind catching trees. 
Of course nobody actually set out to specially arrange these outcrops of trees like this so they'd create such a perfectly balanced and spatially panoramic scene in winter gales. They only catch the wind and turn its energy into deep and richly undulating sound because that's what trees do. But having left the Lento box in this spot to capture this long passage of time, it feels wonderful to have discovered that this exists.
Here it is. And the performance? An hour of fresh moorland air. 

You're not alone here, in this seaside town. A place of hot pasties, hot cups of tea, and families on a day out. A place of rolling Atlantic waves. This is East Looe on the coast of Cornwall. Thick grey sky. April cold. A sprinkling of rain, But shut your eyes, and it could be summer. 
Find a good spot on the sand. You may need to move once or twice. Be guided by your ears. Then chuck your rucksack down, lean against it with your umbrella angled so its just behind, and you'll have the perfect spot for an uninterrupted cinematic sound-view of the crashing waves. In all their crisp textural detail. And spatial glory.
Can you hear which way the longshore drift goes? Maybe not yet. It can take a few minutes. While you wait notice how there's an interesting mix of garden birds and sea birds here. A mistle thrush far left, or is it a blackbird? A wren too, far right. Beyond where the little children are playing. The waves feel powerful in this spot on the sand. Powerful, Sometimes thunderous. Coming, and going, in long swaying rhythms. Coming, and going, with wide spacious calm inbetween. 

A fresh Cornish spring day last week, along the West Looe River valley. Hear an area of ancient woodland. Described as the lungs of Looe. It's Cornish rainforest. Trees, that go back in time, farther than we can imagine. Walk inland, with the river to your right. Soon it'll be endless oaks, trunks covered with moss, all around you. As far as the eye can see. Ahead, where the muddy footpath goes. And behind, from where you've come. From left high up the steep sided valley. All the way down to touch the clean span of tidal water, that glints peacefully between the line of smaller trees. 
From high in the treetops above your head, the calls of rooks echo for half a mile or more. Birds sing crisp, and less harshly in these parts. They have no human noise to compete with. You can hear woodland birds, estuary birds, and sea birds all together here. Against a backdrop of beautiful, deep brown, undulating noise. Oak forest noise. 
The subtle harmonious sound that steady sea air makes when it moves over oak does seem to us to have a deep and richly brown sound-feel. It's a sound that's so spatial. So invigorating to the senses. We believe it is one of the most valuable and important sensory ingredients, of what some call a forest bathing experience. We loved every moment of it, and of being within the true precious quiet of Kilminorth Woods. 

A birds ear view over Plymouth in the far south west of England. Plymouth in a fast gusting storm. Storm Kathleen. This is how it sounded from behind the huge plate glass window of a comfortable cushioned room on the fourth floor of a hotel the night before last. The hotel overlooks a district called The Hoe, where one of the original Eddystone Lighthouses now stands. We climbed Seaton's Tower just before making this recording. Inside the narrow corkscrew stairways, the rounded structure was rumbling loudly, like being inside a giant organ pipe.
A few hours later, the wind was still fierce. Taken with the microphones on a tripod facing out a few inches away from the rain stippled glass (not at all how a sound recording is conventionally made) the air pressure was pressing so hard that whispering gusts were whistling and almost singing through the window seals, left and right. Somehow, though captured entirely from within the hotel room, the soundscape is wide and open. A blended scape, formed both from the interior cushioned acoustic of the hotel room and the wide open windswept city beyond. 
Far right of scene, cars can be heard passing along a rain soaked road. Left of scene air whistles through the window seal. The calls of seagulls light up the spacious sky, flying despite the extreme conditions. The building rumbles subsonically. The sound of Plymouth, an exposed coastal city, in Storm Kathleen. It's a sound photograph that without the protection of the window, would not have been possible to make.