241 Natural white noise from Folkestone Warren beach at night (sleep safe)

Radio Lento podcast

An hour of uninterrupted white noise. Naturally occurring and fully spatial. Captured by the Lento box last weekend from a tree overlooking the beach under Folkestone Warren. Low soft rumbling of the crashing waves. Mid-range curtains of dark grey-blue backwash, that seem to billow and shimmer like hanging fabrics. Fine layers of crisper whiter noise, formed from the frothing and fizzing sea water as it is churned and blown by the night wind. The subtle hiss as countless leaves catch in the undulating wind.

The scene is of the wide open beach. And of the tide, very gradually going out. A breeze, quite firm at around 18 knotts, is whisking up the waves. The place is entirely deserted. It's around 4:30 am. Several hours until dawn breaks. Being a raw location recording there are a few planes that traverse the sky, though their sound easily dissolves between the waves. Something, perhaps a small mammal, pads up to the tree holding the mics, then carries on to wherever it's going. A dark bush cricket occasionally starts up as well. It's quite late in the season for them.

The ground underneath the tree holding the mics is layered in dry leaves left over from the summer. Just ahead, down a steep drop, the ground transitions into large jumbled boulders. This strip of loose rock is in range of the high tide, and probably is semi-submerged when the spring tide coincides with a North Sea surge. During the day people pick their way over these rocks in search of fossils. Folkestone is so we're told a fossil rich area.

Our objective for travelling back to this beach location in Folkestone was to capture the reflected sounds the high tide makes as it laps around the boulders under the trees. We witnessed these sounds earlier in August, but ran out of time to properly record them. Returning last weekend to try again we found there was an 18 knott wind whipping everything up, and a different and wilder seascape. What we have managed to capture though is how the receding tide in this particular location produces a rich and very stable source of uninterrupted natural white noise. Naturally occurring white noise sounds so simple and yet is infinitely complex. These seemingly contradictory qualities may be why natural white noise from real places like this promote both wakeful concentration and vigilant restfulness, that unconscious conscious state of mind where you seem to be able to perceive everything around you as one fulfilling thought. A thought so in and of itself complete, it frees you from the need to think of anything else.