181 Woodland scapes special - August intermission 3

Radio Lento podcast

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 you can enjoy them in full.

160 Forest ravine
This precipitous place, high in the Derbyshire hills, flows with birdsong and fresh moorland water. It's aural presence is made almost entirely of natural things. Non-human, natural phenomena. Having this piece of time uninterrupted , and from this elevation, you can watch the geese through the trees as they fly through the ravine's luscious and airy reverberations.

141 Soft land murmuring - Wooler, Northumberland
An exposed tree, looking down upon the town of Wooler, high in the Northumberland hills. It stands amidst wide open fields, by an empty bench and an overgrown footpath. The soundview of this wide panoramic landscape changes with the wind. Tawny treetop owls. Sheep. Cawing rooks. Flocks of chattering jackdaws. Wood pigeons, cooing comfortably from their lofty roosts. Then as the wind gathers strength, the soundview shifts to the interior space within the tree holding the microphones.

162 Waterfall gorge on Dartmoor
you've made it up, to the Dartmoor gorge. Thick untouched forest, and a rushing torrent, cascading down a rocky, precipitous gorge. Getting here, up and up, along a rocky path through endless trees, feels like a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage to a rarified place, that's lit through day and through night, by brilliant, refreshing, acoustic sunshine. (Since we took this sound photograph we've learned that regions of Woodland on Dartmoor have been designated as temperate rain forest.)

122 Forest bathing in the cathedral of trees
A passage of early evening time, captured by the Lento mics recording alone, from deep in the Forest of Dean.
They hear wide spatial echoes. Woodland birds singing free of interference. Rich, layered murmurings. And air, moving gently through the high tree tops, of this ancient forest. We think of our sound recordings as sound photographs. Spatial sound scenes taken from one fixed position, over time. Our goal is to share the aural view of a place, in a spatial high detail way that lets you experience the true authentic feel of what it is really like to be there. An aural reality of being somewhere else.