Sound from a Town

A 145m long oil and chemical tanker, the Eva Schulte, passes down the Manchester Ship Canal with the help of a tugboat. In this, you'll hear a mix of the underwater and above water sounds as it makes its way to Stanlow Oil Docks. Recorded on the 26th April 2026. Used an Ambient ASF-2 underwater mic as well as an Audio Technica BP4025 stereo mic above-water.

The electrical hums, mechanical whirs and cavernous clatters of Euston station platform is the sound bookending a journey to or from London. You're often out of it far too quick, though, either to sit on the train where these sounds are cushioned, or into the waiting area full of the sounds of human chatter, heels at a canter, the clacking of suitcase wheels, and the piped announcements. On Saturday 1st November, I went down onto the platform very early to wait next to my train and sat with the sonic signatures you're only otherwise likely to hear either in a rished passing visit or if you can sneek down early yourself. Maybe next time you're in Euston and you're looking up at the boards with hoards of other people shifting their weight to the other leg to find a bit of comfort while waiting and awash with the dominant sound of human conversations, listen to this and instead hear what the machines down the ramp are talking to each other about.

The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, designed by Thomas Telford is the highest canal aqueduct in the world. If you're not sure if you're scared of heights or susceptible to height vertigo, it's a good place to find out. I got speaking to a lovely man walking his dog whilst recording this. He told me that the arches were built around bales of sheep wool to keep the weight of the 38 metre high arches down as well as hold the structure while building them. He also mentioned that lanolin, the waxy substance that keeps sheeps wool waterproof, was used to seal the canal. Doing some reading online, ox-blood was also used in the mortar to help prevent it crumbling away during freeze-thaw cycles. I'm not sure how many sheep were sheared and oxen bled for the constuction of the aqueduct, but imagining these 220 year-old animal materials impregnated throughout its structure didn't help much when walking back across it. Anyway, in this recording you can hear blackbirds, flycatchers, thrushes, wrens and chiff chaffs, as well the occasional 'Morning!' as people walk or cycle by. There's also the occasional drip from the canal and the constant rumble of the River Dee below. We end with the sound of a narrowboat turning its engine back on after completing the 307 metre journey over the valley. Recorded at 8am, Sunday 29th June. www.soundfromatown.com

Dibbinsdale is a site of special scientific interest near Bromborough on the Wirral, cradling the river Dibbin passing through. I arrived at around 4am and set up, having never been before. With it being ancient woodland, I was expecting to hear weird and wonderful birds for this dawn chorus – almost as if stepping into a time machine. This was most likely ignorance on my part, as I was instead met with a familiar burble of suburban birds. With the woodland truncated to the east and west by a trainline and the M53 respectively, and surrounded by houses, this is probably no surprise. I aim to go again, though, as in a sleep deprived state I left the headphones too close to my EM272s when I stood back from the set-up which caused feedback. This recording is instead from the back-up BP4025.

There's a Pentecostal Church on the Westminster - one of Ellesmere Port's suburbs - that backs onto a motorway sliproad. The sliproad was opened in 1972 to join up with the M53, a motorway that ran right through the middle of the Westminster and cut the community in two. I'm not sure what this cemetary would have sounded like on a Sunday before the M53 was built, but I imagine the low drone of errand-laden traffic wouldn't have dominated the soundscape as much as it does today. Recorded Suynday 8th March.

This recording is bookended and criss-crossed by two different journeys. At the start, a train passes directly under the bridge, and at the end, a person walks a bike across it. Listening with headphones gives the latter a very eery quality - listening back the first time I had to look over my shoulder. The iron bridge in question is between Overpool and Little Sutton train stations on the Merseyrail Network. Recorded with a Lom Geofon magnetised to the bridge itself, and two Clippy EM272s (A-B position) for a nice stereo image. www.soundfromatown.com

We're in Stamford Street allotments in Ellesmere Port again, this time on the first warm Saturday of the year. Before heading out I saw a bubmlebee out of the window, which I saw as a good omen and sign that everything's coming back to life after winter. The allotment was quiet, though, so perhaps everyone needs a couple more weeks to fully resurface. You do get to listen to activity on two plots, with one person trundling around clearing space for re-planting, and ducks, chickens and a bin fire on the second plot. Thank you to Andrea and Ann who let me record them pootling about.

Here we meet Christine, who spends most weekends protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza from Hebden Bridge town centre. Christine was also one of the Greenham Women, who protested the arrival of nuclear cruise missiles to Berkshire from 1981 - 2000.

Before paying keyboard and harminica for the brilliant Ellesmere Port band Oranj Son, Joe Massey took to the stage at The Bull's Head, a flat-roof institution, to perform renditions of Bach's Prelude in C Minor and Mozart's Sonata in F Major. Recorded on 14th September 2024 with a Zoom H6.

The first part of a series of recordings around Hebden Bridge. In this episode you can hear from Chris, who helps run a workers' co-op in the town. Recorded on the 27th January 2024.

Due to the weather being too trecherous to go anywhere else, here is a recording from a back garden of a subdued dawn chorus smattered with clumps of thawing snow falling from trees. The sound was captured from Meols, on the Wirral. Meaning 'sand dunes' in Nordic, Meols was once a settlement for Vikings and Romans. These days, the sleepy little coastal village is little more than somewhere to return home to after work - either at 5pm or at the end of your three score and ten. Captured at 7:30am on Sunday 5th January using two Clippy EM272 in an AB array, recorded into a Zoom F6.

Spend some time with some chill chickens from Stamford Street allotments in Ellesmere Port. Clipped the mics to the chicken wire roof and left them for 30 mins. There may be standard background chat, the sound of planes, strimmers, cars, doors and windows closing or other suburban sounds, but the occasional cluck, trill, wing flap or the sound of the feeder helps to position you properly amongst the allotment plots. Recorded on 31st July at around 7pm.

A recording of dawn chorus on Ince Marshes. The protected nature reserve sits in the Stanlow marshland now occupied by heavy industry. Some of the heaviest - oil refineries, chemical plants, glass factories. As I arrived, as well as the familiar orange hue felting itself to the cloud cover above the oil refinery, what struck me was the noise of the Encirc glass factory dominating the soundscape of birds waking up and having a stretch of their vocal chords. I was left wondering whether this din affects the sound of the birds, whether they sleep okay, whether they get used to it, or if they see it as positive compitition. Either way, this soundclash is a pretty unique one, and another way to show how the lives of wildlife, machines, and humans are inexorably entwined in this place. www.georgepowell.online

Apparently the most beautiful service station in the country. On the M6, Tebay offers artisan food, drinks, bits and bobs, and is set back from the motorway with views of the Lake District. This hark to nature, with products inside adorned with earthly tones, is situated in stark contrast to the greyscale tarmac, blue shiny signs and white and red scintillations of motorways.

Recorded at the National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port. I used the Lom Geofon attached directly to the engine, giving it a nice low burbling sound, and combined this with a single Clippy EM272 positioned quite close to give a decent crispness.

This episode was recorded just outside BAE systems in Govan, Glasgow, on a quiet, unassuming - but slightly windy - residential street. The day before I recorded, people protested outside to try and stop the manufacture and sale of weapons and other military technology by the British Company. BAE make Machines, bombs, and computerised hardware and software built with the aim of surveilling or killing people. This technology earned BAE around £23bn of revenue in 2023. As I walked past, I could hear whirring and buzzing and clattering from inside the incredibly secure complex. In Glasgow, BAE mainly build Royal Navy Warships, some of which circle the Mediterranean outside Palestine. The sounds in the recording, then, are created by the processes of building fleets of floating, weaponised assets of war. A low-key ambience of state violence, the rumblings of which are indistinguishable, for me, from their intended outcome - death and destruction.

It's 12:45 and 22 degrees on the 13th May. It doesn't seem that warm when you read it like that, but you and your mate have been walking around with your luggage for the best part of an hour, hungry, waiting to stumble on the perfect place to have the final proper meal in Barcelona. After walking past a couple of places that don't seem quite right, you spot two seats in dappled sunlight that beckon you over. The perfect place to sit down for a few minutes and look for food on Google Maps. You feel the weight lift from your feet and back as you sit down and. You decide to simply listen to the world go by. Location: 41°22'56.9"N 2°11'24.0"E

Stopped to record the sound of cars heard through the echoic Clyde Tunnel Walkway. Decided to bring out the Lom Geofón to record the reverberations through the metal railings, adding a lovely tense drone. Recorded in 3 different locations and mixed together. www.georgepowell.online

A mixture of a walkabout, asking fans their first memories and how they feel about Klopp leaving, as well as catching the singing of You'll Never Walk Alone at the start of the match.

Recorded binaurally in a Morrisons Car Wash in Eccles. Headphones highly recommended. 'Take 5' episodes are short and to the point: sit down, close your eyes, and imagine you're somewhere else for a bit. Picture copyright Google 2023.