Canacona, Goa, India. 1.30am Im staying at a low rent guesthouse at a blind corner on Chaudi-Talpona road which traces the Chaudi river at this point. It is moment away from Monsoon so the water is almost at street level on one side and an embankment on the other. Right at this blind corner there is a single track concrete rail bridge which carries both freight and passenger trails through at a regularity of about 30 minutes during the day and 45-60 minutes at night. Just beyond the blind corner is an egg-shell Blue two story hastily erected building and a family home nestled beside it. The rail bridge traverses 8 meters from the house and then is swallowed up in foliage on the embankment.
My room is on the ground floor front and center to the lot, it is North facing. It is off season, extremely humid (95%), and extremely hot (45c) despite being on the coast. The area is lush tropical and very quiet.
At night it is almost completely silent, with exception to distant sounds from neighbouring homes and the Hindu and Catholic places of worship (at 3’26” you can hear the chime of a gong or bell).
The trains are traveling in from the north, from Bombay, at night they are mostly freight. You can hear the sound funnel down the rail-track clearing in the dense jungle, it is amplified and you can pick out the pitch changes in the engine as it grunts its way in.
Warning: this track goes from subtle to extremely loud and then very quiet.
Recorded using a Roland R-26, Binaural microphones and a Sennheiser MKH 416 shotgun directional microphone, mixed-down and rendered using Audacity. There is some slight clipping at the high peak, as I simply set the best levels I could based on guesswork before making the recording.
Thanks and enjoy.
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