After a strangely comfortable evening in a hammock I recorded this rather odd audio clip from a mud-walled farmyard as the sun came up. Chicken, ducks and guinea fowl clucking sleepily by my feet, slowly this bizarre and spooky sound of cattle started to resonate from the small farms hidden in the forest, mingling with the birds and insects.

Brazil - Cerrado tropical wooded savanah, cattle calling through the forest

Recorded in the Atlantic Rainforest in the Ribeira Valley, Sao Paulo State. I walked along a trackway of rough stones in a deep valley surrounded by rainforest and then moved off down a narrow pathway between tall grass and banana palms. An astonishing array of birdsong and the beautiful buzz of a humming bird who crossed the pathway where I was standing several times during the recording.

Brazil - Bird calls, Ribeira Valley, Sao Paulo

Brazil - forest insect symphony, mid-day heat, Amazonas

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

Up on the downs by the bronze age barrows and iron age fort known as Badbury Rings, one of my very favourite special places, listening to the birds and the wind blowing through the hawthorns and sending the clouds scudding along the horizon.

United Kingdom - Badbury Rings, gusting winds and birdsong on the downs

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

Back in 2018 I went on an epic journey across the USA filming a four part series for Sky Arts about the world's best drummers. From old blues and jazz masters, maestros of funk and latino, reggae and rock and roll, to modern day punk and thrash metal. We travelled along the Eastern side of the country, driving down from New York and stopping in Philadelphia; then across to snowy Indianapolis and a long drive south visiting drummers in Nashville, Memphis, Mobile, New Orleans; then heading west to Los Angeles. One of the first drummers we filmed on a rainy day in New York was the enigmatic Bernard Purdie, once band leader for the great Aretha Franklin, a drummer who played with James Brown, Steely Dan, Gil Scott-Heron, King Curtis, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Isaac Hayes, Cat Stevens to name a few. Here he talks about his musical upbringing. I hope you enjoy it.

Bernard Purdie - drumming in your blood

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

This was recorded one evening in the beautiful garden city of Bogor up in the hills of Java outside the offices of Indonesian Nature Film Society as we prepared for a shoot in West Kalimantan, Borneo. The light was gone and the rain had cleared, it was cool outside and I was loitering with only my marantz pad 661 to hand when the the call to prayers started off in the distance. 

Indonesia - Call To Prayers, Bogor, Java

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

An amazing storm occurred one night in a small community in Northern Kalimantan, Borneo. It had been threatening rain throughout the late afternoon, the humidity pressed heavily down across the hills and forest, leaving the elders propped drowsily on their wooden verandahs and the young seeking the playful coolness of the river. An enormous electrical storm ensued throughout the evening, great blazing flashes of light among the high clouds and stars and a ribbon of thunder, dark and foreboding booming across the fragile thatched roofs. 

Indonesia - thunderstorm Northern Kalimantan, Borneo

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

Up in the northern autonomous region of Nicaragua filming the story of the indigenous community of Awas Tingni.  Recording the sound of the village as it wakes up and as with a lot of sound recording, something made its presence felt quite early on, the radio...I was going to try and find another location but promptly realised that every house was pumping out romantic central american folk music. Ok the sound wasn't pure, the birdsong and general ambience had to compete with the airwaves, but nonetheless its a sound long grown warm in my heart, the sound of rural Nicaragua.



Nicaragua - morning community, radio, birdsong, Awas Tingni

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

This was the wonderful community of Mabitia in the Moskito Coast region of Honduras. Its a crazy part of the world and we were incredibly lucky to be able film in this unique region and have the help of some really inspiring indigenous peoples. The village works on rehabilitating orphaned Scarlet Macaws back into the wild. Being a high plateau tropical pine forest it was a different environment to one we usually film in. I love the sound of dogs calling across the community, the resonant echo and distances make it kinda spooky.

Honduras - sunrise in Moskitia

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

This recording illustrates the often interesting variety of animal sounds in the tropical rainforest. Often you will find an animal or group of animals, be it insect, bird or primate, will take a long solo amid the general projections. As this takes place you find strangely the wider orchestra of sound diminishes a little to allow each individual to be heard. This was recorded up in the lush heavily forested mountains of Talamanca. The distant blue mountains are Panama.

Costa Rica - forest sounds Talamanca

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

On Siberut Island we were enormously fortunate to get the blessing of a local shaman to record their trance-like prayers where they communicate with the ancestors. We filed respectively into his small house and as the sounds of the night time jungle penetrated the thin earthen walls he sang a number of sacred prayers. It was a moving and inspiring moment. The wonderful photograph is by Joel Redman. 

Indonesia - Mentawai Shaman prayer

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

When this was recorded the team had experienced in the past week the lows and highs of this extraordinary country. We had returned from the bush where we had filmed an agonising story of a community where death, torture and rape had featured prominently. We also had seen the staggering beauty of the country journeying along its rivers and seeing the forest up close. We found ourselves stranded in a small town for a few days waiting for a flight back to Kinshasa and stayed at the Catholic mission. This was the Sunday service. Quite an engaging moment to hear everyone singing and smiling together after all the tragedy and hardship we had seen. The strength and spirit of human endurance.

Democratic Republic of Congo - church service

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

The indigenous pygmy groups who populate the vast Congo Basin are known for their joyous singing. We had been filming a friendly extended family group when all of a sudden they began to sing. The whole group, from the very young to the very old, all broke out in unison. What I like about this recording is hearing some of the individual voices and the contagious enjoyment of singing in a group. 

Congo - Mbendjele Pygmy group singing 1

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

Recorded early morning as the sun rose. Not many people around, the small squat fishermen huts still boarded, a few fishing boats bobbed lightly at their moorings. There was simply the sound of the breeze playing through the rushes behind me, the chirruping of sparrows among the fields and eucalyptus, and the sea, gloriously flat calm and crystal clear as it lapped lightly against the sand. I sat there seemingly with the world to myself and as the light strengthened, promising another tremendously hot summers day, the Isle of Gozo began to shimmer on the horizon in an indistinct blur of colours, creamy pink cliffs, grey smudges of olive trees and yellow church steeples. Eventually an elderly man came and sat by the shore and working delicately with reeds and twine, he shaped an oval basket for octopus.

Malta - Gnejna bay early morning seascape

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

Africa has a very special unique sound, rich and resplendent, full of personality and variation. We had filmed through the morning at a small hospital in Western Province, and taking a break in the midday heat, I wandered the short distance to the main road and recorded the sounds of the market stall holders, the people running the varied kiosks, the sound of people walking past me in conversation and joking and laughing, the mother berating the child, the sound of motor cars and motor bikes, the blaring radios. Wonderful.

Ghana - Busy midday market town

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

One early morning as the sun rose above the tree tops of the forest casting the small community of Setualng, Borneo in hues of blue then golden light I found myself stirring to the sounds of a musician nearby. I crawled out of the room I was sharing with the crew and grabbed my old Marantz field recorder. There was little time for anything else more comprehensive. The sound of music filtering through seemed so magical and lovely and I was afraid I would miss it. I sat there on the wooden floor of the house and listened transfixed to the sweet sound. Photo by Joel Redman.

Indonesia - morning music in the community

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

Well its been a strange, challenging and on occasions difficult few weeks as the world has come to a stop around us, people have been pulled into their homes, businesses have closed and the shutters drawn. Replaced now by a surreal quietness. Human kind with all the noise and hurry and motion, with all the endless building and travelling and business, its conversations and transactions, its hum of daily activities, its very normality, has suddenly and for a period still to be determined, stopped. Involuntarily we have been silenced. A quiet has fallen across the streets of emptied cities. Everyone is inside. The coronavirus has travelled across the globe and overtaken everyones lives. We here in the UK exist in a strange lockdown, where there is sunshine and early spring, blossom and fresh leaves, but behind that is the sound of distant sirens, face-masks and hand washing and uncertainty, an awareness of our health service facing unprecedented pressure. We hold on.

For the past couple of mornings, way before sunrise, I have slipped away in the darkness from the nearby flat where my little family sleep, my microphones and field-mixer slung from one shoulder and a coffee pressed into the other hand, I rush along and into the narrow pathway I have used a thousand times over the years. At this time in the morning it is wet and sweet in aroma. On one side it has a long stretch of old allotments and on the other a steep bank to a brook and then across to the river and canal. The path is dotted with hawthorn, hazel, dogwood, cherry plum, elder berry and ash and all manner of beautiful plants grow in abundance from tiny blue petalled speedwell, purple anemone, blue bells, dandelion, bull thistle, yarrow, cow parsley and comfrey. It is a haven of songbirds and foxes, and hopefully for a long to come, my family and me.

Put on your headphones and enjoy.

https://timlewiscameraandsounds.squarespace.com

United Kingdom - Morning chorus, River Lea

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

The Emberá  people of Panama, the ‘Golden People,’ live principally in the Archipelago of San Blas and the mouth of the Bayano and Chucunaque rivers in Panama. They are an extraordinary group of people who we have worked closely with for many years now alongside If Not Us Then Who and Guardians of the Forest. They are good friends and it was a blessing for me to be able to go on a shoot and stay with them in their communities. It felt like a long time since I had last strung my trusty old hammock to a secure roof support of an indigenous house in the rainforest.

 Although technically ‘Panamanian’ citizens, they have achieved one of the most positive arrangements of any indigenous people in the world today by having almost complete sovereignty over their own lands and affairs. Although the pressures from the outside world are growing more challenging for these communities.

https://timlewiscameraandsounds.squarespace.com

Panama - Emberá traditional music, flute and drums

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

I recorded several different tracks through the early evening. Starting and ending, top and tailed so to speak, with recordings made in the corners of the forest a few hundred meters down the narrow trackways between the trees, just enough of a distance from the houses and people to hear the insects and wildlife. At one stage I was buzzed inquisitively by a tiny humming bird, its iridescent colouring sparkling in the low sunlight. It seemed more intrigued in the furry windshield cover for the microphone than in the sweaty man beneath. Then I moved closer towards the community. At this time of the evening all is serene. People slowly wander back from fields and the forest, machetes dangling from their sides, loaded with goods and carrying the demeanour of honestly earned fatigue. They climb up the steps and sit on the wooded platforms and verandahs and soak in the sun which now in the late afternoon has lost much of its verocity. Women scrub vegetables and begin to cook meat in iron pans and heavy oil. The old men sit, chewing and talking and gazing across the space. Girls with babes swing in brightly woven hammocks. Children rush and play, punting at a half deflated football. The forest sings as its purple hues turn darker and night closes in.

Panama - the Emberá community of Pirati at sundown

Over the years I've recorded many sounds in different locations around the world. This collection of recordings aims to highlight the unique 'voices of a place'.

This is a recording of singing in the field by the Babassu Women of north eastern Brazil. They are the most amazing collective, a trade union of landless coconut gatherers who harvest the babassu nut. The babassu palm provides a livelihood for these communities of women, bread, charcoal, oil and soap are produced from the nut and husk. They have struggled for many years to maintain their way of life in the face of intimidation and threats from farmers and land owners. The Babassu women have negotiated their own terms; establishing the ‘Free Babassu Law’ in seven Brazilian states. The law gives the women rights to collect from palm groves, now enabling them to plan for the long-term, diversifying their business and securing their future. They fight for their families, their forests and the Amazon as a whole.

Now with the dreadful COVID virus running through Brazil at an alarming rate, my mind goes back to the days we spent travelling with the inspiring Babassu Women, I recall their wonderful spirit and sense of identity. I hope they are ok, I hope they are still singing in the shimmering fields, huddled together beneath swaying palms, beneath the eternal rich blue skies of northern Brazil.

The glorious photograph is by Joel Redman

The Nut Breakers

Working as a sound recordist, video editor, photographer and writer, Tim Lewis produces documentary films for a wide range of international charities and government agencies. His work has taken him to many difficult and challenging locations. Filming semi nomadic communities in the rainforests of Borneo, interviewing refugees on the Thai-Burma border, climbing volcanoes and glaciers in Iceland or following civil rights campaigners through war torn Liberia and the Congo. He is a co-director of Handcrafted Films Ltd and co-founder of the US charity If Not Us Then Who.

https://timlewiscameraandsounds.squarespace.com

Tim Lewis

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