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

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. 

Recording at the Ballachulish Slate Quarry, in the Scottish Highlands, on Sunday 5th May 2024.

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. 

Apparently the Pendleton Bowling and Social Club shut down not long after a pandemic, after the owners couldn't raise funds to keep it going. I used to live opposite, well after it shut, and with no other properly social venue within a 30 minute walk, even I missed this place. Kids run about in here, climb on the ledge outside, and chuck things at stuff. That's until a parent finds them and drags them away from the crumbling neighbourhood institution.  

Everywhere else in the building is pretty much pitch black thanks to boarded up windows, and aside from being light enough to film and record, there's something about this first floor bar area, where Christmas decorations were seemingly stored, where you can peer out on the world continuing outside of this pandemic snapshot, and where, like a deranged Jack Torrance, you can fill in the hubbub vacuum and empty, sodden sofas with imagined lively end of weekend conversations and old boys drinking mild in their Sunday best. Recorded on 28th April 2024.

I took the long route to Derwent Dam, walking south down the Ladybower Reservoir, then along the sheep fields on Crook Hill and beyond, and back to the Dam via Hagg Side, recording bits as I went, and ending on a recording of the overflowing dam. Like most rushing water, it's very white-noisey, which I quite like.

Derwent Dam was built in 1902, and the reservoir was used for practising Dambusters raids.

I used 2xClippys, a geophone to record one of the streams up close, and an F6.

Recorded on 11th April 2024.

www.georgepowell.online

From Cooper's Hill in Egham I recorded the mixture of birds and planes. I didn't edit too much, as I wanted the 'natural' rhythm of the planes to be close to what it was on the day. The loudest planes are those that head east after takeoff due to them turning and heading pretty much overhead. 

Used 2xClippys and an Audio Technica BP4025 as I find the Audio Technica gives the tones I want for recording machines. 

Recorded on the 28th March from midday.

www.georgepowell.online

Recorded at Alexandra Palace. Swapped places once while I was there. If you listen carefully, you can hear the screech of - I think - a hawk amongst the more common birds.

Recorded on 24th March, 05:30.

www.georgepowell.online

I recorded a bunch of sounds from different levels of the spiral starcase in the Feldstraße Bunker back in April. What you'll listen to is a non-linear edit of these sounds to try and convey the sense that the building is a living object, which is what I felt when I was in there. 

The bunker was used as a bomb shelter back in WWII, I believe. When I visited there was a load of rumbling and clanging construction going on outside which appropriately made it seem as though I was in the middle of a raid.

The concrete structure seemed to allow not only reverberations of the sounds up the spiral staircase, but also the memories of the historic use for the building.

www.georgepowell.online

An audio walk in Bedford on a Sunday, contrasting the sounds of St. John's Retail Park and St. John's Church.

You can read a more detailed write-up in a blogpost on my website here: https://georgepowell.online/blog/ 

Recorded on 12th March 2023.

Many businesses on the High Road thrive on match-days. Many don't. The businesses that suffer due to the council-enforced road closures, often barbershops, beauty salons and off-licenses and other retail, still have to pay the same business rates, despite many customers staying away when Tottenham play at home. In some instances, the till can be down more than half compared with a non-match day.

Here you can listen to Mem, who works in an off license, talk about how things have changed for him since the new stadium was built. You'll also hear fans talk about what they do once they hit the High Road, and the sound of roads being closed and match-day ambience.

A walk around Westminster on Thursday 19th January. From 12 bells to 1 bell.

Along with the sound of Big Ben, you can hear me get shouted at by police speeding through Parliament Square and the sound of many gates being closed and locked. There were also people protesting outside Downing Street, and I spoke to Geza Tarjanyi, who made headlines a week later for pushing Matt Hancock in a tube station.

Listen to what nurses are saying and singing on the picket line outside UCLH in Camden.

Recorded on 19 January 2023. 

Location: 51.5251963, -0.1367342 

Recorded in April 2021.

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. 

A short walk during the heavy snowfall on the 11th December 2022, where children and adults ventured outside to make a mark on their brand new surroundings in the form of footsteps, scooped handfuls, and snow angels.

I forget when I did this, maybe late January 2021.

Location in the title.

www.georgepowell.online

Recorded at 19:56 on 3rd November 2022.

54.57901, -1.23466

Terry is known as the Bard of Flaybrick. A volunteer at the cemetery who recites poems to the visitors on Flaybrick's walking tours. He's written over 2000 poems with subjects ranging from historical figures of Birkenhead, to local people, places and organisations.

I spoke to Terry to find out where his love of poetry came from, why he volunteers, and how important Flaybrick is to him, and by extension, the rest of Birkenhead.

www.georgepowell.online

Location: 53.3984171, -3.0622207

About a mile off the coast of West Kirby, on The Wirral, is a sandstone archipeligo with an on-off relationship with the rest of the peninsular. 

Roughly every twelve hours, the tide arrives and cuts off the outcrops from the mainland. For around 3 to 5 hours, anyone caught on Hilbre or Middle Eye is pretty much alone, save for the curious brown seals, elegant swallows and swifts, and the sea. 

There is plenty of folklore about Hilbre Island and its smaller cousins; a place of monk's pilgrimmage, a stash-spot for smugglers, and a decoy site during World War II.

If you're ever thinking of popping over during high-tide, always make sure you tell a life guard on West Kirby beach. 

Location: 53.3824369, -3.2271192

Recorded on 6th June 2022

While Blackpool hasn't recovered its popularity as a seaside resort since the rise of package holidays in the 50s, many people still travel down to the piers. From local day trippers with their children, to older visitors who would have first holidayed there in the resort's hay day. Many attractions still haven't changed much since the 50s, but for many, this is what makes Blackpool so appealing. 

Location: 53.81104, -3.05622

A solution to cool down London's Tube network is causing all sorts of problems above ground. Mid-Tunnel Ventilation Shafts are placed at intervals along the tunnels to expel hot air, but to do so they use fans, which emit a noise that can ruin the lives of people that live around them.

This episode looks at two different cases, on either end of the Victoria Line, how the structures have affected their lives, and what efforts, if any, Transport for London are going to, to help them out.

More info can be found at www.georgepowell.online/tonesfromunderground

Originally a French design in the 17th Century, the idea of staircase locks was brought over to Bradford in March 1774 to make it easier to control boats going through. However, it takes around 45 minutes to travel in either direction, and the process wastes a whole lot of water coming through the canal network. 

As a result, it wasn't long after the 5 Rise was built that construction on these types of locks ceased, so it was almost an anachronism even before it was built. Now, though, the locks still cast an impressive mark on the Aire Valley, and you can only imagine what the spectacle was like when it was first opened.

Location: 53.8563619, -1.8382493

In July 2020, I was invited to Sardinia by my friend Sascha. He was keen to show me around his favourite place on earth, and tell me all about the songwriter Fabrizio De André, who himself fell in love with the island. I gladly saved, packed my Zoom H2N, and headed out for my first trip to Italy.

I wanted to record as much as possible of Sascha telling me about Fabrizio de André, showing me around Cagliari, Iglesias and Gonnesa in the south of the island, and whoever we bumped into along the way, including some very hospitable locals.

This was originally aired as part of an online radio show in 2021, and has been repurposed for Sound from a Town.

Recordings from Nyanga and Harare in the north-east of Zimbabwe. Nyanga is known as the highland area, with its own micro climate and unique species of birds. There's also alot of cattle farming so, you should be able to hear the cow bells in the distance. The final recording is of the Harare suburbs where, like most cities, nature is barely audible.

Submitted by Ste Hughes and Gugu Masuku; recorded on an iPhone 13.

Nyanga Location: -18.18032, 32.81052

Harare Location: -17.7553, 31.0436

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

It was clear from the start, that after 40 years living in the town, that Anuar had seen it all, and had his own take on the character of the place.

Often seen darting in and out of the many locally owned businesses to check up on people, and known by pretty much anyone who's been in the area for more than a decade, he seemed to be a nexus for many of Tottenham's underdogs.

This episode was recorded in one day, an average Saturday for Anuar, as he gave me a tour of the 'Treasures and Horrors' of N15 and N17.

Shopz got Barz sprung up during lockdown and went viral on social media. The platform invites people of all walks of life to come in to a typical London corner shop and do a freestyle.

Originally based on Broad Lane not far from Seven Sisters, freestyles are now done just up the road on Philip Lane.

I spoke to Richy and Frenzi about their origins, as well as how much Tottenham itself has played a part in their story.

Callum Jack is, in his own words, "a mix of every character in 'People Just do Nothing'".

The photographer has lived in Tottenham, just off the High Road, his whole life, and can often be seen scuttling about N15 and N17 selling his Tottenham-branded t-shirts.

He agreed to let me follow him with a microphone for a day, to find out a bit more about him. He takes me to his local chicken shop, down the High Road and West Green Road, as well as a local photography exhibition.

Callum also shares his views on what Tottenham means to him, and also his thoughts on the people bringing change to the area.

Every year, there's a protest outside Tottenham Police Station, aiming to bring to light the police brutality that has marred the area, and the globe, for decades. This is just a small excerpt from the day.

In this episode you'll hear from Stafford Scott, a well-known figure in Tottenham and London, who has been tirelessly campaigning for justice, racial equality, and an end to police brutality.

This was recorded in August 2020, the same year that Jermain Scott, aka Wretch 32, released a video of his father falling down the stairs after being tasered by police that April. Jermain also gets up to talk about the state of policing from his point of view.

The Met say they only use force "when absolutely necessary".

Location: 51.59082, -0.06997

A recorded walk; starting from Woodside, and heading north along the coast, around the Irish ferry terminal, to Seacombe.

Birkenhead docks appear to be in a state of redevelopment, home to a large telecommunications company and the local college, Wirral Met. New pavements have been laid down.

From: 53.39523, -3.01

To: 53.40977, -3.01617

Tranmere Rovers are a team currently in League 2 of the English Football League.

As the only club on the Wirral, the club is a focal point for community activity on the peninsular, and for years has had to compete with its noisy neighbours across The Mersey River, Liverpool and Everton, for attention.

Recorded during a home defeat to Newport County on the 21st August 2021.

Location: 53.3737, -3.03248

Evidence of a submerged forest could be seen up until the early 80s, and artefacts discovered here suggest that 'Dove Point' was a trading route, enabled by 'Hoyle Lake', a channel of water off the coast-line.

Nowadays, the site is home to a promenade which forms part of the Wirral Coastal Walk, and an outlet through which the Meols Water Treatment Works discharges into the Irish Sea.

A straight field recording with minimal editing. Recorded on January 22, 2022. 

Location: 53.4070112, -3.1579262

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.