Faroe Islands: six days of wind

Why the Faroes:

I had been looking for a place where wind is the main event rather than something to fight, and where there is almost no road noise to work around. Eighteen islands in the North Atlantic, fifty-something thousand people, and weather that changes every twenty minutes — that turned out to be exactly it.

The plan was deliberately small: two islands, no car for most of the days, and a single objective — get an hour of clean wind on open ground. Everything else that ended up in the library came as a bonus.

Getting there:

• Flight to Copenhagen, then Atlantic Airways into Vágar. Book the return with a spare day — fog closes the airport more often than anyone tells you.
• Buses run between the villages and are cheap, but the last one leaves absurdly early. Plan the walk back, or plan to sleep out.
• Most of the good hillsides are private land. Ask. People said yes every single time, and twice told me where to go instead.

Recording the wind:

A blimp with a full furry survives about 8 m/s honestly. Past that you are recording the windshield, not the hillside — so the work became finding places where the wind does something rather than just blows: a stone wall it has to cross, a gully it funnels into, a turf roof it drums on.

Most takes ran twenty to forty minutes with the rig on a low tripod and me lying in the heather a good way off. Anything with my own jacket in it was deleted on the spot.

The gear I carried:

• Sennheiser MKH 8020 pair in ORTF, plus a spare set of capsules that never came out of the bag
• Sound Devices MixPre-6 II at 32-bit float — the only reason a few sudden squalls survived
• Rycote blimp, full furry, second furry layer over 8 m/s
• A light tripod, four spare batteries, and far too little dry clothing

Everything lived in a 38-litre pack. On the fourth day the rain got into the windshield and it never dried again — the last two mornings were recorded with a slightly damp furry, which you can hear as a touch less top end.

What it actually sounds like:

Quieter than people expect, and never silent. There is a constant floor of wind and distant water, and on top of it three things keep happening: sheep bells at varying distance, fulmars on the cliffs, and rain arriving — you hear it on the water a good half minute before it reaches you.

The moment I came back for is the one below: a shower crossing the fjord, then landing on a turf roof twenty metres away.

What came back:

Roughly 19 hours recorded, 24 files kept. The rest went for wind distortion, a quad bike, my own footsteps, and one memorable take ruined by a helicopter that circled for eleven minutes.

Everything that survived is in the library below — untrimmed, tagged, with the notes I made on location.