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Listening to the Landscape 15 - village drones

Matthew Shenton

Updated: Jul 18, 2024

I have managed to capture my first real industrial sound in Holbrook whilst stood at noon on a wooded footpath (labelled as footpath 1 on the definitive parish map) behind the Alton Water water treatment works.

An ivy-covered fence prevented me from discerning exactly what was going on, but the drone and rumble heard is possibly the sound of a large tanker being filled (or emptied). For the 20 minutes I stood on the path the drone obliterated nearly all other sounds in the vicinity. At around the two minute mark of the uploaded recording there's a sudden change as whatever industrial process is being carried out is altered. If you listen with headphones the occasional bird can be heard: possibly a jackdaw and pheasant but its difficult to tell.


I have walked this path numerous times in the past at weekends and never heard anything like it; perhaps it was a rare event or the process only occurs in the week? As the site processes over 10 million gallons of water each day, I wonder what other sounds can be heard at different times of day, week and throughout the year?


I must admit that I am a big fan of drones so really enjoy the recoding below. I selected around eight minutes (from the 20+ minutes I recorded on the day) and will definitely be using the textures for a composition and geo-locasted soundwalk (about which more information will be coming soon) .



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© 2025 Matthew Shenton

(Suffolk sound artist 'there are no birds here')

Homepage photo credit: Dell Atreides

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