The London Sound Survey From Dusk Till Dawn
Persistence of Sound presents a posthumous album of field recordings from The London Sound Survey. ‘From Dusk Till Dawn' is a sound-journey through the dark in East Anglia. It roams across the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk to places whose sounds have a precarious existence outside the crowded realities of modern everyday life.
Before his death in 2021, Ian Rawes had been making recordings across East Anglia, notably at Lakenheath Fen, an RSPB reserve on the Norfolk/Suffolk border.
Like many of Ian’s projects, there was a tight logic to this collection. They chart the journey of natural sounds from dusk until dawn. The extraordinary sound of massed birdsong, the wind thrumming against an abandoned pumping station, the sound of common seals. More info
"A bittern called from time to time, sounding like someone blowing over the wide top of an old milk bottle. A distant machine tone came from somewhere to the south-east: perhaps from an agribusiness factory. It continued into the small hours.
At around half past four in the morning I struggled out of my sleeping bag and began to walk east, carrying my bulky wooden mic baffle on its tripod. A small wood drew close and there was a brief pinpoint of light among the tree trunks. I stopped then moved on: the light was obscured. Birds hadn't stopped calling all night but now the intensity and variety of cries and songs was growing.
I set the tripod down on a path running between the wood to the north and the reed-beds of New Fen to the south. The pre-amp and recorder were switched on. I listened briefly through headphones and swivelled the baffle this way and that before noticing how the flights of ducks and geese seemed to go from east to west. I set the baffle and its pair of mics to face south, then went to sit on a tree stump about forty yards away. For a short while everything felt unfamiliar while the dawn chorus took over my thoughts, as though suddenly immersed in a remote past."
Listening to this sequence transports you far away into the darkness of the night, to another realm altogether. We don’t hear complete stillness - Ian’s notes outlined plans to record Thetford Forest at 4am, but this wasn’t among the files he handed over. When we tried to make this missing recording to ‘complete’ the project, we found Thetford Forest to be anything but silent, even in the small hours. The nearby A-road dominated everything, and there was a distinct absence of wildlife. We suspect Ian made a similar recording in the middle of the night, and discarded the results.
This collection is a tribute to Ian’s matchless ability to capture completely immersive, distinct environments. His recordings are valuable markers of change. They have the power to take you out of everyday life, to slow the heart-rate, and to really listen.
- Welney Washes [ 5:00 ]
- At sunset, the sounds of wildfowl travel far across the flooded fields of the Ouse Washes in Cambridgeshire. Many are Bewick's and whooper swans spending the winter in the Fens before migrating back to Iceland and Siberia.
- Welney Washes Swans [ 4:33 ]
- At sunset, the sounds of wildfowl travel far across the flooded fields of the Ouse Washes in Cambridgeshire. Many are Bewick's and whooper swans spending the winter in the Fens before migrating back to Iceland and Siberia.
- Buckenham Rooks [ 6:00 ]
- With the sun now below the horizon, thousands of rooks and jackdaws fly home in the twilight to roost near the village of Buckenham, south-east of Norwich. Their massed cries overwhelm the listener, swelling and fading and growing stronger again as they settle within their citadel of the tree-tops.
- Inside Pumping Station [ 3:22 ]
- Around midnight the path by the river Ouse in Norfolk is deserted, and the only shelter to be had close by among the flat expanse of fields is inside an abandoned pumping station. The wind blows through broken windowpanes and sets the loose debris within to a fretful clattering.
- Joist Fen [ 5:17 ]
- Past four o'clock and the May dawn chorus has begun at the RSPB reserve at Lakenheath in Suffolk. The songs and calls of many species are heard from among the reserve's mosaic of woodland and wetland, including the resonant booming of bitterns and raucous flights of geese. At this hour it sounds as though the world belongs to the birds alone.
- Hundred Foot Washes [ 6:20 ]
- Past four o'clock and the May dawn chorus has begun at the RSPB reserve at Lakenheath in Suffolk. The songs and calls of many species are heard from among the reserve's mosaic of woodland and wetland, including the resonant booming of bitterns and raucous flights of geese. At this hour it sounds as though the world belongs to the birds alone.
- Trial Wood [ 5:58 ]
- Past four o'clock and the May dawn chorus has begun at the RSPB reserve at Lakenheath in Suffolk. The songs and calls of many species are heard from among the reserve's mosaic of woodland and wetland, including the resonant booming of bitterns and raucous flights of geese. At this hour it sounds as though the world belongs to the birds alone.
- Winterton Common Seals [ 6:28 ]
- Dawn breaks over the North Sea and a colony of grey seals groan and cry among the sand dunes of Winterton in Norfolk. Their vocalisations have a human-like cadence, and have for their background the unresting rhythm of the waves. The journey from dusk till dawn is complete.