274 Burgh Island midnight tide (sleep safe)

(pronounced Birr Island)

This long, slow Devon day, is drawing softly to a close. Looking out to sea, the sky beyond has already fallen velvet black. It's midnight. Scattered lamps shine on Burgh Island. It looks from here more like a dark thicket, afloat on a vast water field. With glow worms, hiding.

The tide's in now. Closed around the island. Encircled it, with rich undulating sound. Filled up the wide sandy beach, for as far as the eye can see, with swirling shallows. Ankle deep. As the sea meets itself coming in across the causeway, it splashes up fingers of crisp white spray.

Some gulls are still aloft. High wheeling, but mostly quiet. Silently weaving between the stars. Riding on the diurnal winds. the off-shore breeze, or land breeze, created by the land-sea temperature contrast that happens at this time of night.

* As with all Lento episodes it can take several minutes for your listening brain to properly switch into the soundscape. This one hour segment is from an overnight recording we made in April. The Lento box is perched on a second floor balcony looking straight down the causeway towards Burgh island, which is only about 200 yards from the box. Due to the topography of the beach and how it contours around the island, the sound-shape of the sea is interestingly different to other coastal locations we've captured. The breakers form and gather spatially, often very slowly, with long periods of swirling eddies in between. High tide is reached towards the end of this segment. Moderately strong wind gusts sometimes buffer the microphones. As a recording location it is exposed. We've applied some spot rumble reduction when this happens just to improve the experience for headphone / Airpod listeners.