Radio Lento podcast

Hugh Huddy
  • 4.9 (26)
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Radio Lento podcast

Surround yourself with somewhere else. Captured quiet from natural places. Put the ”outside on” with headphones. Find us on Bluesky @RadioLento. Support the podcast on Ko-fi.

  1. 263 Wild open coastal reserve

    MAR 29

    263 Wild open coastal reserve

    Sat back, looking onto Rye Harbour nature reserve. There, to the ear, is the sea. From here it's out of sight, somewhere below the long shingle ridge. From this point across the reserve, it could to the ear be an aural sunrise. A wall of natural energy, lighting up the horizon with clean, white, spatialised noise. On the intervening  land, stray gusts of wind swish swathes of sea grasses. Press whispily through thin wire fences. Lift circling seagulls even higher. Billow shapeless banks of cloud, from left to right of the gradually illuminating sky, water and air.  In such an exposed panoramically vast space, come the timeless calls of sea birds. Animated brush strokes on a canvas that stretches from far left, to far right of scene. Each stroke, is an individual. Each, a living thing. A soul, for whom this wild open place is home. * This early morning hour is from an overnight recording we made last month from the edge of the nature reserve at Rye Harbour, East Sussex. It captures the sound-feel of wide open emptiness that you get when out and about on the reserve. It's also a rich source of naturally spatialised blue-grey and dark grey noise, produced by the sea and shaped by uninterrupted expanses of gently contoured shingled land.  ** Lento is 5 today! Happy birthday to us! Thank you for listening, sharing and supporting us over five years. More here > https://ko-fi.com/radiolento

    1h 4m
  2. 262 Night stream at West Quantoxhead (sheep sleep safe)

    MAR 24

    262 Night stream at West Quantoxhead (sheep sleep safe)

    We found our way to record this remote location late at night, and in near total darkness. A sheltered dell, with a fresh running stream. Earlier in the day, when everything was bathed in bright grey light, we'd walked through this secluded place on our way down from West Quantoxhead, and decided it might be a perfect spot for the Lento box to make a long overnight recording. There's a branch just above your right shoulder, my partner quietly calls up from below. Can you use that to lever yourself up? The height I'd just gained had markedly improved the spatial clarity of the wrilling stream, so just a little higher, I thought. We really need to be able to properly hear the full width and detail of the water, as it flows through the dell. How still this place is. How perfectly balanced it sounds, nestled within the wildness of this wide open West Somerset landscape. To reach the branch I had to work my way through a mass of prickled twigs in the dark while holding the Lento box in one hand. After some not insignificant effort, the branch, and my elbow, connect. I haul up, wedge in, and tie the box onto the trunk. To be sure this spot meets the criteria we've evolved over the years, I try to match my head with the box, and hold completely still. Listening. Absorbing the scene. Slightly adjusting the angle of the mics, so they can capture as much as possible of what it is I'm actually hearing. Good, I quietly call down, this is it.  We head back to where we are staying, leaving the Lento box to record alone, non-stop through the night. Without us or indeed anyone else about to witness, time passes. Looking down from the tree, the stream wrills, and the landscape murmurs its nocturnal murmurings. Sheep can be heard, sometimes moving vaguely, through the dark. And one seems to come to rest beneath the tree holding the mics. From time to time it makes the softest, most gentle noise, that a sheep can surely make.

    1h 1m
  3. 261 Midnight in Rye

    MAR 17

    261 Midnight in Rye

    Twelve strikes the clock, of St Mary's Church in Rye, East Sussex. Midnight. A sound that for anyone left awake, opens a new page. It's a new day, captured by the Lento box perched high above the churchyard, one night in mid-February. The new day reads like this. The gnarled limb of a winter tree beside the churchyard creaks against an undulating wind. The flagpole at the top of the belfry tower, rattles, like the mast of some windswept sailing ship.  The sky is heavy with cloud and dark. Coastal air ruffles and catches in the rooftops of huddled 14th century cottages. They look gathered in around the church, like a solid congregation. Time passes. Banks of wind rise, then subside. Creaks and rattles punctuate the night air. And the Quarterboy faintly chime out the quarters.  St Mary's has a good clean bell. It echoes off the huddled houses beautifully. Sonorous tones, that seem to ring out with the same golden grey hues of the stones from which this ancient coastal town is built. The skittering leaves blowing and the almost too faint silvery ding dongs of the Quarterboys.  * We captured this sound-view of St Mary's Church Rye last month on a freezing cold windswept night. We rested the Lento box on the outer ledge of a second floor window that looked over the churchyard and straight at the church itself (with a chain to stop it falling). Do let us know if you can hear the quarters being struck, they are subtle but just about audible. ** Explore more from Rye. Listen to the sound inside the belfry in episode 200. That was a windy night too.  *** We're building up to our 5th birthday. Watch this space!

    51 min
  4. 260 Early spring in the Derbyshire hills

    MAR 9

    260 Early spring in the Derbyshire hills

    What a long-form sound landscape recording of the Derbyshire hills reveals, is space, weather, and birds.  A buzzard. Mistle thrush. Song thrush. Great tit. Geese. Wren. Robin. Jackdaw. Pheasant. Black cap. All present in their different ways. Buffeted by strong spring breezes under grey skies.     Ahead, down the fields, mid-left of scene, the rushing river fills the valley with soft white noise. Its sound is quite subtle, yet so present. So wide. And so constant. Over the thirty five years we've known this place, through all weathers, and all seasons, it's the river that's never changed. * Over the years we've shared many sound landscapes from this rural location in the Derbyshire hills. This until now unpublished segment comes from a 14 hour recording we made in mid-February 2022. We haven't been able to get there this month, so we're sharing this audio as a reminder of how the valley sounds now the spring is nearly here, as morning gets going.

    51 min
  5. 259 Night rain under a large tarpaulin (sleep safe)

    MAR 1

    259 Night rain under a large tarpaulin (sleep safe)

    Sometimes, when persistent rain is forecast overnight, we place the Lento box out in the back garden on a long battery to capture the sound. Falling rain is always enchanting, especially at night when the city is asleep.  We leave a large tarpaulin stretched across the yard to catch the raindrops as they fall. We position the microphone box centrally, angled up, so as the rain falls at random across the 4 metre by 3 metre surface. It captures a widely spatial sound-image of the rain.  Somewhere very high up in the clouds, there is a special place. It's directly above the tarpaulin. The droplets that form here will not fall unwitnessed, as rain normally does. The droplets will instead fall down into this episode. To soothe and calm many ears. This night rain. Under a large tarpaulin.

    40 min
  6. 258 Tidal breakers on Winchelsea beach (high definition spatial sound)

    FEB 22

    258 Tidal breakers on Winchelsea beach (high definition spatial sound)

    It is almost high tide on Winchelsea Beach. Old timbers, buried in the shingle berm, point up into the hazy winter sky. You scrunch over the stones. Rest your hands on their sturdy weatherworn tops. And begin to take in the scene.   Clean sea air cuffs against your face. It smells faintly of salt, of sea wetted rock. The beach rakes sharply down into bright white froth. Then just blue-grey, out to the horizon. Nobody is about. Only distant shapes, of coasting sea birds.    Each wave comes and breaks onto the shingle. Some roll in straight. Others from the side. Some cross. Some break twice. Some rise slowly up, overbalance and crash in one thunderous crump onto the hard shingle. Others race furtively towards the land, as if they can't wait to meet it. Together, over time, they paint a picture in sound, of this mid February beach, under a wide open, winter hazy sky.  * We took this sound capture of the beach between Winchelsea and Rye Harbour a few days ago. The scene captures the weight and detail of the tidal breakers, and is best "seen" through headphones or Airpods. A little propeller plane flies over, and almost at the end a curlew can briefly be heard flying from right to left of scene, towards the Rye Harbour nature reserve.

    30 min
  7. 257 Dawn birds of The Kielder Forest

    FEB 15

    257 Dawn birds of The Kielder Forest

    This spatial sound-scene of dawn birdsong was captured from deep within the Kielder Forest, a huge wilderness of fir trees in the far north east of England almost at the border with Scotland.  Along with most all of our 257 episodes, this audio was produced by leaving the Lento box to record alone on-location, over a long span of time. By listening back to the captured audio we pick out sections that best convey the aural richness and presence of what it was like to be present in that place. These sections then become the episodes. What you hear sounds strikingly real. We designed the Lento box to capture sound binaurally, in an unprocessed and realistic way. It lets us experience that aural sense of being present in the landscape. Ear-witnesses to the authentic passing of time. This unaccompanied recording method means we can "hear there", but not "be there". Being there affects animals, birds and insects. By not physically being there they can behave normally. They move about, communicate, sing, forage, free of being alarmed or inhibited. Thanks to the Lento box, we are able to witness what it sounds like to be in their world.   This recording was made last May, amongst tall fir trees growing beside a rough track that runs into the forest, East of the reservoir. Willow warblers are most prominent, along with wrens, song thrush and other woodland birds. A cuckoo is just audible at 15 minutes.  At 38 minutes two heavy creatures lumber by and scramble into the cover of the trees. Hearing how they traverse the space reveals just how careful they are being to avoid detection.  One of the main reasons we travelled up to the Kielder Forest last year was to capture the evocative sound of wind moving through vast areas of fir trees. While the wind was not particularly strong at the time of this recording, the tall fir trees can still be heard in the wind, and producing that richly restorative and evocative hushing sound. If you're new to us, before you listen, here's a few tips about getting the most out of listening to Radio Lento. If you have listened to a few episodes, please could you buy us a coffee? We are an independent and ad-free podcast, powered by our listeners.

    49 min
  8. 256 Gulls and emptiness along the Creel Path

    FEB 7

    256 Gulls and emptiness along the Creel Path

    (Hello! We're a different type of podcast. If you're new to us, before you listen, here's a few tips about getting the most out of listening to Radio Lento.) The Creel Path, used by generations of fisherman to get from Coldingham to the coastal fishing village of St Abbs in the far south east of Scotland, is a thousand years old. It crosses an exposed coastal landscape, with rough pastures lying either side. Over the last century the addition of a telegraph wire, strung out along timber poles, may be one of the only significant changes to have been made to this narrow stony path.  The Lento box is tied to a squat broad leaved tree along the path. It's facing east into a wide open field, and beyond that is the sea. Mid left of scene about a third of a mile away, a sense of the waves can be heard rushing into the harbour of St Abbs. To right of scene fields stretch inland with distant sheep and late season lambs. As time passes the engine of a fishing boat softly thrums the air. Gulls almost constantly wheel and circle across the emptiness of the sky. A quiet sky, free of human-made noise. A sky sounding like it must have always sounded, over centuries.  * This sound capture is from an overnight recording we made in the summer of 2022 when we last visited St Abbs. This section follows on from the nocturnal scene captured in episode 208. Now morning has broken, and the gusting wind that swept over the path in the night hours has settled. Gentler gusts occasionally blow through the tree, revealing its presence to the listener. Rain clouds are coming, but for now the air sounds bright and clear.

    54 min
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4.9
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26 Ratings

About

Surround yourself with somewhere else. Captured quiet from natural places. Put the ”outside on” with headphones. Find us on Bluesky @RadioLento. Support the podcast on Ko-fi.

Information

  • Creator
    Hugh Huddy
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2025
  • Episodes
    267
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2023 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Radio Lento podcast

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