Radio Lento podcast

(Hello! We're a different type of podcast. Before you listen, here's a few tips about how to get the most out of listening to Radio Lento .) From here, steep up a winding path above the harbour, the ocean waves crash onto the ancient seawalls of St Abbs on the east coast of Scotland, in full spatial detail.  Swirling currents of bouncing swell, softened by less than a hundred yards, into a rich te...

The rain came down, in the early hours of this morning, as I write.  Lovely rain. Light to moderate. Temperature 7. Dew point 4.  Wind EastNorthEast, gusting 8 knots. Enough to drift the ice cold raindrops. And ruffle the leading edge of the wide tarpaulin, that we've stretched over our back yard for shelter. And to make the rain sound better. More detailed. More spatial.   Nobody was there though...

Warm inside an all-weather coat. Facing out across the water. Sat, boots wedged against the top ridge of the slanted seawall. There's rain in the air. Thirty minutes to take in this wild estuary place, you tell yourself.  Right of scene the small Essex town of Burnham-on-Crouch. Directly ahead across the water Wallasea Island. Low lying. A vegetated slip of green land and an RSPB nature reserve. L...

Dent station lies on the historic Settle to Carlisle railway between Blea Moor Tunnel and Rise Hill Tunnel. It's the highest operational railway station on the National Rail network in England. The highest and we feel the best because it is so extremely wide open. So extremely exposed. Set in the North Yorkshire Dales National Park, Dent station serves at 1,150 feet above sea level, in stalwart pu...

The atmosphere inside a bird hide is quite unusual, as interior spaces go. Low wind moaning in the drooping wires between telegraph poles. Whispering rushes and siffing seed heads of marsh grasses. Indistinguishable shifting murmurings, of the surrounding landscape, blown in through low letterbox windows. To the ear there is a lot of outside to be heard inside a bird hide. A fleeting curlew. A hum...

It's always strange when we leave the Lento box behind to record overnight. The feeling is strong, but also hard to pin down. The Lento box feels like a trusted friend, even a family member now. It has taken us years to build and refine, and lives on the shelf in our kitchen when its not out on a job which makes it more than just an object. It's travelled far and wide with us too, and made almost...

The experience of being out in the wide open on Higham Marshes in Kent on a warm May afternoon is nothing short of glorious. It's a perfect location for the Lento mics too. Earlier this year we walked through the nature reserve en-route to the old fort on the Thames and left the Lento box to capture the sound scene of the Higham Marshes nature reserve from a little hawthorn tree in full scented bl...

An hour of pure falling water in a natural wide open landscape. Captured in the early hours of yesterday morning in the hills of Derbyshire. A place off the beaten track. Up in the hills. Rugged. Reached by a steep up climb holding for balance on arm-thick sapling trunks, whilst stepping between winding deer tracks.  An old holly tree stands amongst many other trees, facing the waterfall. We hang...

We're hugely grateful to Revd Paul White of St Mary's church at Rye for enabling this special recording to be made. An aural presence of St Mary's church. Captured through the night of the 3rd of October. This passage of time is as it happened, from midnight to 1am. Experience being in the nave, then perched high in the belfry looking down from the top ledge upon the bells, including the 'quarter...

There, thought the old drystone wall. I knew it. A tawny owl. Flying silent, up top the field. It'll only be a shadow, if ever you do get to see it.  Better get to where you're going my feathered friend. The rain's coming. Not long, I'd give it, what, five minutes before the first shower.  A flurry. That's all. At least to start with. Night minutes mind.  No! Night minutes aren't slower if that's...

Near a limpet covered wall, beaten into shape by high tide waves and squally weather, are some rocks submerged in shingle. Rye Harbour shingle. Sun warmed, they've got just enough flat on top, for two to sit. And enough yards from the water too. For you not to get wet. And yet, from time to time, you do. But only a speck, thrown by an exuberant wave. Advancing waves keep rolling in. Splashing and...

You strode up to this field, through lush meadow, for a better view over Arley station. And now you're here. It's a perfect Shropshire August day. Blue sky. Light breezes. Hot sun on your back. Nearly time you think looking up into the sky, far right, for any sign of smoke.    The whole station's in view from up here. Here beneath the tall whispering trees, and basking grass crickets. There's the...

What happens, inside slow forest, is not much. Just the odd snap and crack, of a dry twig dropping, every now and then.  I know sometimes there is a rook. And I know a raven too, if you've managed not to fall asleep. And echoes. Of passing people on the trail. And of seagulls and roosting wood pigeons too. Every now and then.   No, not much happens, in slow forest. Apart from the wind in the trees...

This onshore breeze. A pleasant one, will not cuff too much against your ears. It'll flutter. Like a dark brown feather quivers, on a current of moving air. It'll be steady too. As a pleasant onshore breeze is. As the horizon is, from whence it came. Rising, at its centre. And falling away, almost imperceptibly either side of its farthest edges. A constant. And a consistent presence that lets your...

Miller's Dale. Steep sided. A valley in the Derbyshire Dales with magnificent contours. High rocky outcrops. Sheer faced cliffs. Green fields plunging down to a quiet, winding river.   It's a place where geologists go, to see the evidence of lava flows from millions of years ago. Where historians go, to marvel at Victorian viaducts and tunnels cut by hand in the 1800s. And where weekend people go...

High, in the remoteness of the Cumbrian hills above Dentdale, with buzzards circling overhead, we found a fir forest.  Tall, elegant trees, reaching up to the sky.  All leaning, slightly, against a mild August breeze.  The mild, long distance, cross country breeze.   The hill was steep, so we stopped to take in the view behind. It was then we heard the forest.  Its dense trees loomed above us. Onl...

For this last August intermission episode we've made you a montage of *sleep safe* sound-scenes selected from four overnight recordings. From the sea wall at Burnham-on-Crouch, looking out over panoramic tidal estuary waters by Wallasea Island. An oak tree deep within the Forest of Dean where woodcock make their roding flights. A remote fishing village harbour under empty skies in South East Scotl...

For this penultimate intermission episode, we've made you a montage of sound-scenes selected from four enchanting woodland episodes. A forest ravine high in the Derbyshire hills. Under a tree above the town of Wooler, in Northumberland. A waterfall gorge on Dartmoor. And finally, the mysterious murmurings from deep within the Forest of Dean.  Here are the descriptions and full episode links  so yo...

We're taking an intermission during August. Rather than disappearing, we're made you a montage of sound-feels selected from previous episodes. This week's theme is coastal. Listen to four lovely clips of coastal scapes we've captured. Take a tour from Tenby in South Wales, Coldingham Sands in South East Scotland, and Nothe Fort on the Jurassic coast of England. Here are the descriptions and full e...

We're taking an intermission during August. Rather than disappearing, we're sharing a different type of episode, each with a theme, using some of the best bits from previous episodes. This week's theme is rain.  Here are four glorious rain scapes. Travel with the rain as it falls, on a wide open coastal landscape, a walled garden in London, and on high moorland woods in Derbyshire. Here are the de...

A shadow grey rock, the size of a stranded ship. Radiating heat, remembered from the midday sun. Around it, rock pools, and smooth curving shapes. Like sleeping seals. You're out. Alone. For a late evening walk. Overhead, and behind, the sky is a deep, deepening blue. An end-of-day blue. But to your right, on the low west horizon, it's still blazing bright.  This place, this wide open beach, is wh...

You find yourself, suddenly out. On the other side of the wood. The edge, of a wide open empty field. A meadow. Tall elegant trees, given way to a high, bright sky.  Standing silently. You can feel the heart of the forest behind you. Hear its echoes. Its leaves near and far, rustling. How one tree creaks. How banks of soft summer air move spatially across the treetops. How trains, passing distantl...

The sound-scene is of a smooth, sunrise sea, heard from a tree, growing up out of a bundle of boulders, close to the water's edge. It's early April, and just after daybreak. The Lento kit is in the tree, capturing the wide spatial quiet of this place with nobody about, right beside Nothe Fort in Weymouth on the south coast of England. Ahead, looking south, the sea. West is Portland. East is Weymou...

  The cabin, is compact, in every way. Every inch, accounted for. Every component, slotted in, perfectly. And, with full rucksack and boots and spare boots and string bag, a bit of a squash to get in too. Once you're in though, once you've sorted, and stowed, and made things neat, any claustrophobic feelings will just, well, have magically evaporated. In some curious way, these cabins can somehow,...

At the far end of the long sandy beach at Tenby there's an area of cool, shady woodland. From the distance and under hot summer sunshine, it looks idyllic. Inviting. A shady promontory on the horizon that curves and blurs down into the sea.  The best way to get there we think, is by shanks pony. Walk, as slow as you like. Go the full length of the beach. Pass the kids playing and the running dogs...