TouchRadio 114

To call this field recording would be crediting the situation with more adventure than it deserves. At five in the morning, with a hangover starting to percolate, the ideal conditions are surely to just roll over, hit record and go back to sleep and that is pretty much what happened here. End of disclaimer. Boats, whether out at sea or in harbour, have a particular vocabulary of sounds. On the water, they are masked by the white noise of the ocean, in which as many sailors have reported you can hear almost any sound imaginable. Moored up, where things are quieter, the water laps and slaps the hull while the wind plays aeolian harp on the mast. That rigging sound is often a chorus of tapping lines against masts, but this particular boat a cruising yacht with a Bermuda rig, moored at Yarmouth after a days sailing had an unusually musical voice, sounding clear notes as the wind passed through its structure. At sea this was a contented hum, but at night it felt much more ominous. The tones in this piece were recorded in one of the sleeping cabins in the stern, a little resonant box. Of course, there has been some processing mainly to remove the snoring of sailors.