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Wind Is the Original Radio

Wind Is the Original Radio

Written by: earth.fm
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About this listen

 This podcast series is aimed at helping us to connect to ourselves and to our earth by deep listening to natural soundscapes. Based on empirical evidence as well as numerous recent studies from all over the world, listening to natural soundscapes (particularly mindful listening) has a great positive impact on our wellbeing, and potentially on our respect for nature. However, these soundscapes are increasingly scarce as we humans continue to destroy the natural ecosystems which produce them.© 2022 earth.fm Biological Sciences Hygiene & Healthy Living Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Science
Episodes
  • Listening With x Earth.FM

    Listening With x Earth.FM
    Dec 8 2025

    This episode was created by Earth.FM's curator Melissa Pons for the multidisciplinary artist Cameron Randall, on his show Listening With at Resonance.FM, which aired on 8th December 2025.

    Melissa's words on the piece:

    "A sensorial journey with some of the most poetic field recordings I have encountered. They are delicate, requiring a certain level of attention. The recordings combine depth, dynamics, and space in a beautifully staggering way, allowing the wandering ear to easily attune to the different soundscapes. From the Nordic solitude of a snowy forest to the sublime manifestation of our living planet of an erupting volcano in Vanuatu. The recordings are woven with music from Patrícia Wolf, Verónica Cerrotta and me; this mix is an expansive invitation to tune in to our natural world and a plea for us to love it and nurture it."

    Playlist:
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    1 hr
  • December Solstice by Cameron Randall

    December Solstice by Cameron Randall
    Dec 21 2025
    Bodies Extend Themselves Toward a Breathtaking Absence of Limits Earth.FM has the pleasure and honour to announce a new work with multidisciplinary artist, field recordist, and DJ, Cameron Randall. Cameron’s practice involves composing assemblages of field recordings, electro-acoustic sound, sampling, synthesis, AI models, and digital processing. His previous work has involved sculpture, algorithms, sound, moving image, text, and installation, while his Listening With radio series is broadcast every month on Resonance FM. In this sound piece, Cameron takes us on a journey across the planet with an evocative, intense, surprising, and utterly beautiful sound montage of Earth.FM recordings made during this Solstice season. In his own words: "This piece was created from field recordings made by a number of international field recordists around this time of the year. These recordings are so rich and diverse that I was immensely inspired by their depth and detail. I am interested in the remixing, morphing, and translation of sound—where the audio both retains its original sonic quality and also becomes something new. Every sound you hear in this piece originates from the initial recordings provided to me. The origins of some sounds are obvious; some are more opaque. This is a line I often like to blur and play with. Thank you so much to Melissa Pons for commissioning me to do the piece for Earth.FM." To work creatively with precious natural soundscapes is an exercise of affection and appreciation for our world. We truly hope that his cosmic piece will inspire you in many ways. You can also listen to the original field recordings: Jan Brelih: ‘Cave Entrance in the Balkans’‘Dusk Cicadas: Usun Apau Ancient Forest’‘Falling Snow in the Forest’‘Frog Echoes’‘Gentle Waves of Black Sea’‘Talking Bamboo’ Serge Bulat: ‘Winds of Onemo’ Rafael Diogo: ‘Where the Wild Things Whisper’ Ezra Gray: ‘Crook tn the River’ ‘Night Time in Sloe Copse Wood’ Tom Kelly: ‘A Sandstorm in Death Valley’ Gina Lo: ‘Rolling Pebbles at the Glass Cove’ Andy Martin: ‘Golden Mantled Howlers at Dawn’‘Midnight Insect Chorus Near Corcovado’ Phil Mill: ‘A Very Close Wolf’ Martha Mutiso: ‘Amphibian Chorus’‘Chorus in the Amani Nature Forest Reserve’ Melissa Pons: ‘In the Valley – Countryside of Santo Antão’ Melissa Pons and Jocelyn Robert: ‘Ebb Current in Rocky Shore’ Ivo Vicic: ‘Snow Storm with Powerful Thunder’ Gregor Vida: ‘Wind, Squeaking Tree and Light Birds’ George Vlad: ‘Morning in Zimbabwe Village’
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    30 mins
  • Interview: Jakub Orzęcki

    Interview: Jakub Orzęcki
    Dec 17 2025
    “I try to find places that still carry a bit of this [...] feeling that [...] something might be watching me in the place I try to record, or that I may have some problems with finding my way back from the recording spot. [...] [R]ecording there [gives] a chance to capture this raw energy of nature.” In this episode of Wind Is the Original Radio, the Earth.fm podcast, site curator Melissa Pons talks with Jakub Orzęcki. An acoustic ecologist and field recording artist based in Wrocław, southwestern Poland, Jakub was nominated for the Sound of the Year Awards in 2022, in the category of Best Natural Sound. Jakub has made it his mission to highlight the noise pollution increasingly affecting acoustically sensitive areas, and to archive changes occurring in sonic environments. However, as well as exploring Poland’s remote wilderness and underground environments, his work also encompasses the acoustic heritage of the local folklore and traditions which are coming under threat from globalization. With his Polish Soundscapes initiative, Jakub records and assesses the relationship between biophony, geophony, and anthropophony within his homeland’s acoustic environment. In their conversation, Melissa and Jakub discuss a novel way of thinking about his field recording work: the notion that different recordings have flavors. For Jakub, this relates to the emotions he feels in the place where they are made - maybe a flavor of adventure (for example, in relation to soundscapes “tied to [an effortful] expedition”), or the flavor of being “the first person in a place for a very long time”. There’s even the flavor of preparation and analysis, drawing on “old descriptions of [a] place[,] [...] of settlements that once existed there” and grounded in everything from maps of topography, light pollution, and air traffic to Lidar-based terrain models. Jakub also describes a more primeval flavor - one that comes from respect for, or even fear of nature, and which “mix[es] [...] fascination and unease”. This sonic flavor reminds us that, for most of human history, natural environments were so much more unpredictable, stronger, and powerful than we were, whether in the form of forests, rivers, mountains, or swamps. Capturing that sensation tells us how “small [we] are compared to what surrounds [us]”. They also delve into topics including: ‘Sonic nostalgia’: a notion prompted by the disparity between the soundscapes of Jakub’s childhood, spent in his mother’s picturesque home village, and those he experienced when returning to the same area as an adult. From a “quite simple and [...] even [...] old-fashioned” way of life that “harmonized with [the] forces of nature in a perfect way”, the “sounds of [the] river where [he] played with [his] cousins [and the] beautiful sounds of the hay fields” had been overtaken by quite different sounds generated from the sand extraction sites that the riverbanks had become, while the forests were filled with industrial noiseThe “hidden critical potential” to field recording, which means it “can be a declaration of [the recordist’s] worldview”, akin to a protest song. Jakub explains how a field recordist is able to provide commentary by “reveal[ing] what is in [a particular] soundscape [...], what's disappearing and how human activity shapes it” - in his case, mainly in relation to awareness of noise pollution, but also on broader issues like migration, pandemics, or women’s rightsA traditionalist worldview - not politically, but one that embraces “a sensitivity to what's being lost” and an “uneas[iness] about the future”. For Jakub, that manifests as a “longing for sounds that are disappearing”, as well as “a quiet sense of anti-consumerism and anti-globalism”, given the way in which transport, industrialization, and tourism can be detrimental to biophony, geophony, and traditional folk soundsField recording as an act of care for the soundscapes it preserves, which may encourage others to listen more closely to the world around them. But, also, the challenge of finding the time to listen to in the first place - even though slow, intentional deep listening can “sharpen [...] awareness [and] expand [...] [the] imaginations”: ideal responses to challenging timesSpecies’ changing behaviors in the face of noise pollution - such as marsh frogs or midwife toads, which are increasingly difficult to hear, year by year; songbirds like blackbirds or nightingales changing the pitch of their calls; or whitetail eagles reacting nervously to loud disturbancesThe need for a healthy balance between natural sounds, human activity, and modern infrastructure - and the difficulty for enabling these elements to coexist, particularly in countries which, like Poland, are developing quickly, and where governments may consider “[...] noise [...] as a part of progress and development [rather] than pollution”. This despite ...
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    1 hr and 16 mins
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