276 First rain after drought (high definition spatial sound)

Full Episode description

It’s not often we record from the back garden. The spot is suburban. Grassy and full of tangled shrubs yes, and encircled by a sprawling wisteria too that visually at least gives a verdantly self contained feel. But foliage while beguiling the eye does not strain out the roads and street sounds of the city. Or the sky. Flight paved, plane lined, jet rumbled. No, quiet is never in abundance here. 

At the end of last week, after a long run of bone dry conditions, the day came when rain was forecast. As day turned to dusk, the sky that’d been different shades of blue for so long, turned an opaque grey. The dark did not bring cool. If anything the air gained heat. As we set up the Lento box to record, the air moved around our bare arms and legs like warm weightless water. We could almost feel with our skin how the rain was starting to form.

We left the box alone on the grass, by the wisteria, to record all night. A night of half conscious dreams of rain, pounding on the roof. Of liberally flowing water. Of a loudly chortling drain. Of dawn birds singing through aural mists of green things dripping.

Listening back, witnessing the passage of time when the first rain began to fall, what struck us most was how delicious the first rain felt. Perhaps it’s joy. The plants at last are having a drink. As time passes, other feelings come about. This is good rain. Heavy rain. Quenching rain. The birds will be able to bathe in shallow puddles gathered between roofs, and the world will sparkle, clean, when the light comes. But what we also gained from a long listen to this section of time, was the transition. How different the environment sounds and feels towards the end. Echoes and a pleasant sheen of aural silkyness. And endless things dripping. And what we didn’t expect to hear, bees starting their days from the very first rays of daylight. And hints of swifts screaming overhead.