For once I am able to comment on a radio review. Elisabeth Mahoney review's yesterday's Radio 4 programme, "The Wire", in today's Guardian.
The Wire (Radio 4, Sunday) was a curious tale of obsession. Sound recordist Chris Watson told the story of those fixated with the peculiar, haunting noise that emanates from telegraph wires when the wind crosses and envelops them. The programme began with a rush of this spooky sound, all pings and static and creepy growling.
Watson described the noise as "some of the strangest and most beautiful sounds I've ever heard", adding that as he listened to it there were "six or seven grey kangaroos" in front of him. He was in Australia, where artist-led Wired Lab Project celebrates this aural phenomenon.
There was an intensity to the way the artists explained their passion, and a smidgeon of the geek as they detailed the technical process of recording the odd hum. One chap recalled recording the noise all night; another suggested the sound was akin to "the sound of a cell".
But there was magic, too. As we listened to the wind strumming the wire, the sound suddenly contracted and went high-pitched. "All the sound just changed completely," we heard. "It's because the sun came out." Watson, who knows all about the power of sounds to convey a moment, place or creature, was mesmerised by the interplay of weather and wire, and the brooding poetry it can make.
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