Radio Lento podcast
Episodes
99 High in the hills amongst snow laden trees - Christmas special
25 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We always try to make a recording in the landscape after it's just snowed. It's so quiet. And the quiet is palpable. The effect is unique and wonderfu...
98 A ship that passes in the night - sleep safe
18 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A passing ship, in the night, is like a thought in slow motion. A thought sailing in, from out on the ocean. A thought made of bulk timber upon steel....
97 Through the trees, distant weir (source of natural white noise - 3D with ear/headphones)
11 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Still air. Quiet parkland. It's 8am, before the people come. Empty paths. Untrodden grass. Mist lifting. On the face of it, nothing is happening. But ...
96 A blustery day begins on inland tidal water (headphones)
04 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When we set up to record, there were no signs of the weather front. It was late evening. Low tide. We'd followed the path East along the river out of ...
95 Suffolk Wood (part 10) - a voyage from dawn to day - spacious and subtle - best with headphones
27 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Day has arrived, and there's no mystery about it. Gone the voids. Gone the echoes. Gone the skewed sense of time, magnified, with distance overlapping...
94 The trees that wait for the chalk stream to flow (natural source of white noise)
20 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Out of the 240 chalk streams globally, 160 are (or were) in England. For a moment, I thought I heard a splosh and the whip of a fishing rod. But how...
93 Rain garden after dark (sleep safe)
13 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Rain. Rain falling in the night. Falling in the night when there's nobody about to hear it. Falling onto a little ramshackle garden made up of upturne...
92 Up in the April hills of mid Wales
06 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Up in the April hills of Wales, beside an empty road. Behind the brambles, down a dell, a stream, over bare stone rolls. What sing you mistle thrush...
91 When woods go weird
30 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Three years ago we made another overnight recording at the edge of a rural wood. It turned out to be one of those night's when almost nothing stirred,...
90 Wind on water, night curlews, rain later (sleep safe)
23 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Deep and spaciously detailed night quiet, at the edge of the tidal river Crouch in rural Essex. Wind on water. Rain on water. Night birds over water. ...
89 The birds of the leafy ravine - a tonic for tired minds (best with headphones)
16 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We're going back to early June this year, to the rich and intermingled singing of birds that happens at dawn throughout the spring and early summer. I...
88 An afternoon at Wrabness (part 2)
09 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Above the mud silt beach, it's all bright clouds, moving. Then the sun breaks through. The river is stretching wide here, left to right, silently carr...
87 Sky landing - when the wind bends the trees
02 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
They look as if they are swimming in it. The banks of trees. Tense into the current, swaying, twisting in sympathy with the changing wind. Like they'r...
Night tide turning at pillbox point (sleep safe)
25 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
High tide on the River Crouch. Night. Not a soul about. Small bobbly waves gamboling along the brimming tideline. Playful, in swilling swirls, reachin...
Afternoon meadow in late summer
18 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Last day of August. Pleasant sunshine, blue sky. Wind 1 to 2 knots, barely noticeable. Standing tall with motionless leaves, the trees are leaning int...
Down at the marina on a weekday in August
11 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sunlit pontoons. Taut ropes. Empty footways. Still, like a photograph. So many boats moored up, waiting for someone to come down to sail them. This is...
Suffolk Wood (part 9) - the hour before dawn with owls and nocturnal animals
04 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From over the fields beyond the edge of the forest, the bell of St Mary's strikes 4. Within this empty space between the trees, the golden sound rings...
82 Hill top oak in strong wind - a natural source of white noise (sleep safe)
28 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
High up on an exposed moor, between the Derbyshire towns of Glossop and Buxton, an old oak tree leans into the wind. Its sound is heard only by passin...
Rising tide in the rock garden - the sea wall near Bradwell-on-Sea
21 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Stop walking! There's a place to sit. Roll up your jacket to make a cushion and perch on the rocks, just for a moment, to take in the view. Look! Over...
A doze in the grass on Wallasea Island (High-def sound and sleep safe)
14 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This, is summer island time. Sizzled by crickets, gusted to and fro by hot marshy breezes, a distant marine vessel softly thrums the air with a low so...
Essence of estuary
07 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Plunge off the train and smile at the fresh air of nowhere! This is Thorpe-le-Soken in Essex. All ground and sky. The bell in the driver's cab rings t...
78 The birds that sing on the cusp of night - a leafy ravine in the Peak District (sleep safe after 16 mins)
31 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Early June days, up in the green of the Peak District hills, do not give way easily to night. The birds won't let them. Brimming over with life and so...
77 The cuckoo of Swanscombe Marsh
24 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Swanscombe is one of the last surviving brownfield sites in the Thames Estuary where threatened wildlife can live. On the Kent side of the Thames, to ...
Last pasture before the sea - Winchelsea to Rye
17 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Our first really clear sound-view of the landscape came along a footpath a mile or so from Winchelsea station, with the A259 behind us and, according ...
75 Yacht masts on the estuary at Wrabness (part 1)
10 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We stopped to step over a large brown caterpillar mid-way across the rough brambled footpath. All around us light breezes were sweeping through the hi...
74 Night shallowing in a Suffolk Wood - listen with headphones (sleep safe)
03 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This is part eight, 3am to 4am of the twelve hour Suffolk Wood recording. We made it almost four years ago on a balmy summer night in August by leavin...
Slow rhythms of the Hoo Peninsula
26 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Several miles up the sun-baked track, along overgrown footpaths and through fields high with meadow grass, lie the watery ditches of the Higham Marshe...
The tunnel, the towpath and the window - under the M6 at Spaghetti Junction
19 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Set free from its cradled bowl, the smoke from the bargeman's pipe rose straight, into the sky. Lighter than air, the burning vapours knew all-too-wel...
Wading cows and a passing cuckoo - the lakes and woodland of Chatsworth
12 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mid-afternoon. June hot. An overgrown track on the Chatsworth Estate, close to the peaceful lakes above the house, between meadows and dense woodland....
70 - Blue sky. Empty beach. Low tide.
05 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It's past midday on a late May day in Suffolk and the sun is pouring down onto a calm sea. It's shining, for the first time this year, with that summe...
Time beside a stream in the Welsh hills
29 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A fair April day has dawned up in the hills above the village of Kerry. Nothing's come or gone yet along the road beside the stream. Nature's curfew m...
Birdsong in rain from inside the derelict chapel at Abney Park nature reserve
22 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There's a special feeling that comes with the sound of falling rain. With a sky still free of jet planes, this is how the day unfolds within the secre...
May rain after daybreak
15 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It must have broken through a mist of spring rain when it came, the dawn, the first light of day. It would have come into a watery sky too, one busy w...
Listening to the longshore drift
08 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There's a point along the promenade at Bexhill-on-Sea where the pull of the crashing waves outweighs the ice cream hubbub underneath the pavilion. Whe...
65 Songs from the churchyard of St Mary’s Gilston
01 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The parish church of St Mary, Gilston in Hertfordshire dates from the 13th century. It is set within wide open farmland north of Harlow. It's one of o...
Waiting for skylarks at the Rye Harbour nature reserve
24 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If I sit here, very still, so as not to scare the water birds, might they come back? I hope so. They've wheeled away again, like they do. It's their d...
Taking forty winks at the seaside - Norman's Bay, East Sussex (sleep safe)
17 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The perfect spot for a snooze on a windy beach is the leeside of a shingle berm. Sheltered from the onshore breeze, you can't see over to the sea, but...
Mistle thrush sings amongst wind hushing conifers
10 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The air above Broxbourne Wood is moving steadily, pushed along by an early April wind. It's catching the tops of the tall brush-like conifers abundant...
A city at low tide (sleep safe)
03 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It is said that cities never sleep, but from inside north east London's Abney Park nature reserve, the silken hum tells a different story. It's the ea...
Soundscenes of spring from the Derbyshire hills
27 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Nestled between high gritstone walls, just off a single track lane about 1000 feet up in the Derbyshire hills, there's an old farmhouse with a chicken...
A fallen tree on Galley Hill
20 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It was, from a bridleway in rural Essex, the long slanted beam that first attracted us over for a better look. A fallen tree, perpendicular to the res...
Suffolk Wood (part 7) 2am - counting the chirps of a dark bush cricket (sleep safe)
13 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When the bell of St Mary's strikes 2am, and the world has dissolved into shadows and echoes of far away things, there's a solace to be found in counti...
Seaside brutalism - at the Port of Felixstowe
06 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On the beach, sat within wetting distance of the water's edge, there's a point where the noise from the container port begins to meld in with the shin...
56 The whispering trees of Bayford Wood
27 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It was our first visit to Bayford Wood. A country walk, on a bright July day which was not quite as warm as it should be. A walk under an undecided sk...
Light rain beside the lane near Sandy
20 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It's all woods and rolling fields in rural Bedfordshire. Good for long walks under wide skies. A chance to get away from it all. On a wet February day...
Sound-scenes of Norman's Pond as dusk turns to night - sleep safe
13 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dusk. The gates of the Lee Valley Park are shut. The people are gone. The miles of footpaths are empty, save for crossing ducks. Beside Norman's Pon...
After the dawn chorus in the Forest of Dean
06 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There is a time when thin light broadens into day, when the sun is properly up and warm and every diurnal creature is settling into its daily rhythm. ...
52 The balm of warm woodland in late summer
30 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Locked-down and nowhere to go. With pounded pavements all pounded, and back gardens beleaguered under pallid skies so dull sodden with wet, it's hard ...
Garden birds under a silent sky
23 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Every year, on or near the 4th of April, we leave the microphones out in the back garden to record the dawn chorus. It's a simple ritual, partly to ma...
50 Singing beck below Black Hill (sleep safe)
16 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
High on a Derbyshire moor below the summit of Black Hill, between Disley and Whaley Bridge, there's an ancient trackway. It runs almost level across b...
Suffolk Wood (part 6) - 1am to 2am sleep safe with owls
09 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
All is still in the wood. It is mid-way through a barmy August night. There is no breeze to rustle the trees. Dark bush crickets trichit the passage o...
Abney Park on Christmas Day in the morning
02 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Through the bare limbed trees of Abney Park nature reserve in Hackney, London a song thrush sings sweetly. It's first light. The air and the microphon...
Quiet field by Young Wood
26 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It took several miles, over claggy east Hertfordshire footpaths and a waterlogged bridleway, to find a quiet field. A peaceful spot where the susurrat...
Derbyshire gales blow away the cobwebs
19 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It is one of those bright-skied days when the clouds are moving faster than they should and you can hear the weight of the trees. A gale is sweeping t...
Night rain falls on a Peak District moorside (part 2 - sleep safe)
12 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's the early hours of the morning. Shrouded under dark sky and cloud, the rain's falling heavily on the moor above the Whaley Bridge reservoir. It's...
Bucolic contrasts under low cloud - the land between Sandy and St Neots
05 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tingling droplets still hanging in the air from the clearing mist, with not much daylight left, we finally managed to find a place to record. A lonely...
43 Tidal water mirror still - a sound view from Canvey Island
28 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A bird calls out. Its cry carries far out over the water on this, a rare day of no wind. Not even a breeze or a whisper of leaves in the trees. Cows l...
42 Night beside a stream in Wales (sleep safe)
21 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Up in the hills about three miles from the mid-Wales village of Ceri, there's a stream. It runs down into the valley mostly parallel to a road. The la...
Gulls at low tide along the River Thames
14 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Where the Thames path draws level with the iconic towers of Canary Wharf on the south side of the river at Rotherhithe, we climb up and over the tide ...
Low tide on the Thames Estuary at Benfleet creek (no loud noises and best with headphones)
09 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Bonus episode to mark 10,000 Radio Lento downloads. This is a shorter but no-loud-noise version of episode 29 'Trains planes and estuary birds'. Now i...
Jackdaws and flooded winterbournes - watery emptiness
07 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On the edge of the Bayford Pinetum in rural Hertfordshire, in view of the surrounding farmland, there's a young birch tree, growing in a secluded holl...
Tawny echoes in the cathedral of trees (sleep safe)
31 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Night has fallen over the Forest of Dean. In the clearing where we left the microphones, the cool nocturnal air has begun to echo with the calls of ta...
Rain in Abney Park
24 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tucked behind buildings, encircled by busy roads in the borough of Hackney in London, there's Abney Park. It's one of the 'Magnificent Seven' cemeteri...
Wind over the Bridgemarsh Marina on the Dengie Peninsula
17 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
While we went off to explore along the river banks of the Crouch, we left the microphones behind to record on the windowsill of a derelict shed just i...
Suffolk Wood part 5 - the hour to 1am (sleep safe)
10 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Night has come, and owls, to clear the slate. In this wonderful old wood the August air is still and filled with brightly chirping crickets. A propell...
Wind on water under an equinoctial sky - on the Dengie peninsula Essex
03 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Not a place for unstable microphones. A mile along the winding footpath beside the River Crouch, with Althorne railway station and the ringing masts o...
Champagne shingle on Felixstowe beach
29 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's just after midday in August and very hot. Families are out on the beach sunbathing, children play in the water. At the shoreline, cool waves wash...
Folkestone Warren - Spitfire flypast then coastal murmurings
26 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
East Cliff overlooks the Channel and on a clear day like this, has a hazy view of France. On the way down to The Warren Beach, steep down a narrow wi...
31 Late summer heat bathing under splendid trees - peace in the Clinton-Baker Pinetum
19 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Basking in 30 degree heat borrowed from July, it's a still September day. This forest, set in the Hertfordshire countryside, is at its calmest. As it ...
30 Wind and time passes in the Forest of Dean
12 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's 8am and deep in the forest, steady banks of wind are pushing into the upper canopy. Above, the sky is pale blue, bright. It is late May, the day ...
Trains, planes and estuary birds
05 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's a cloudy late August afternoon on the banks of the Thames Estuary near Benfleet in Essex. Wild gusts of wind race in over the water. On this side...
Night rain falls on a Peak District moorside
29 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's 1am. In a remote wood set amongst steeply sloping fields above the now infamous Todbrook reservoir in Whaley Bridge Derbyshire. Heavy drops of ra...
Dead of night beside a lake in the Lee Valley Park - sleep special
26 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It is 3am. At the water's edge, the shadows are thick. A single star reflects in the ink black water, bobbed by passing ripples. The wide-open watersc...
August breezes through an ancient Oak
22 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the middle of a sundrenched field in Gilston Park near Harlow in Essex, a crow calls far-off to the left, a bird scarer fires shots to the right. I...
Cooling off beside sifting waves at Felixstowe Ferry
15 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sitting on a warm shingle beach where the river Deben joins the North Sea, feet stretched into the cool water. It's a hot afternoon and the ferry over...
Peace beside the tidal Thames near Stanford-le-Hope in the county of Essex
08 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Forty minutes walk from Stanford-le-Hope railway station, along residential avenues and a service road that leads to the nature reserve, past a single...
Brutalism and crickets of the A10 flyover
01 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Beside the A10 flyover in the Hertfordshire countryside, crickets bask in summer heat and road noise. The flyover has been designed to reduce the nois...
Summer sunrise over a lake in the Lee Valley - raucous birds start the day
26 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Lee Valley reservoir chain comprises thirteen lakes that separate the London Boroughs of Haringey and Enfield to the west from Waltham Forest and ...
Murmurs of the Kerry Ridgeway (part 2) - what rush hour sounds like in the hills of mid-Wales
20 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Over the hills above the sun is going down. It's been a warm dry April day along the Kerry Ridgeway. High pressure, light breezes. It's late afternoon...
Arable farmland in the Essex countryside
12 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Along a narrow footpath that threaded through wide open farmland we came across a lonely outcrop of young and exposed oak trees. Their dry leaves hush...
Suffolk Wood (part 4) - 11pm
05 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Inside the wood the ambience is changing from evening to night. Now it is owned by the crickets, hidden in carpets of leaves. Muntjac deer move about ...
A summer walk in rural Hertfordshire - sunshine and showers
29 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Yesterday on an ancient bridleway that runs through open farmland, just before the rain clouds caught us up, we stopped for a picnic on the edge of a ...
Cathedral of trees - the Forest of Dean (part 1)
21 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
About a kilometre into the forest we left the microphones strapped to the trunk of a huge ancient tree. The spot was well off the beaten path and open...
Early summer breezes
14 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On a warm breezy walk in the Essex countryside, we left the microphones in a tree at the top of a rarely used bridleway to record the sound of the win...
Sound-scenes of ocean waves
08 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On-shore wind cuffing at the ears, breakers hauling at pebble banks, walking over shingle ridges to greet the incoming tide. Soft sands, waves retreat...
Suffolk Wood (part 3) - 10pm
05 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The crickets the wind in the trees make the softness of this wood. This is the hour up to 11pm. Starts with 10 minutes of a loud muntjac deer barking ...
Murmurs of the Kerry Ridgeway
01 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In a remote spot just below the Kerry Ridgeway in Powys Mid-Wales, where a stream runs along the bottom of a wooded gully beside a country road, lies ...
Murmurs of the Kerry Ridgeway
31 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In a remote spot just below the Kerry Ridgeway in Powys Mid-Wales, where a stream runs along the bottom of a wooded gully beside a country road, lies ...
Sleeper train from Paris Austerlitz to Port Bou
24 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Experience the mesmerising sound of the world passing by, recorded from outside and inside a couchette on a SNCF sleeper train one August night. Depar...
Under a large umbrella (rain and thunder)
18 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
June 2016. A summer thunderstorm is passing over North East London. The atmosphere is electric. It's the final hour of polling in the referendum to de...
Suffolk Wood (part 2) - 9pm
11 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An hour of pure immersive peace and quiet from that spot in the wood where nobody goes. This surround audio recording is unedited and just as it happe...
Dawn on a Peak District moorside
03 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This time of year the sparsely wooded hills just above the now infamous Todbrook Reservoir in Whaley Bridge Derbyshire resound with the dawn chorus. T...
Sheltering in the back garden (from a storm)
28 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
With some very loud thunderclaps this spring storm passes over the back garden. Sheltering in an old shed beside a high wall. The rain eases off and t...
Suffolk Wood (part 1) - 8.30pm
22 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It is just after half past eight in the evening in the Suffolk wood. The sun is setting. It is dusk, very warm and dry with light breezes. There are n...
Fowey, Cornwall - where land meets sea
15 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Walking along a cliff path lined with crickets the sea appears, steep down to the right. There's no one around. There's time to listen. There's a dot ...
Sleeping city waves
10 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Hearing London at night from a small patch of grass bordered by shrubs, flowering plants and a bay tree, a typical garden in Hackney enclosed within o...
A babbling brook at night
10 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
At the bottom of a steep-sided thickly wooded and uninhabited valley in the rural county of Derbyshire, England, this babbling brook fills the night a...
Pyrenees walk cicadas
02 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Best with headphones or earbuds if you have some handy. At times steep and very rocky, this is a surround-sound audio recording of a walk through tree...
Episode 1 - Suffolk wood at 6am
29 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It is mid-August. The early sun is lighting up the treetops against a pale blue sky. You're hiding out in this rural wood which is typical of any in t...