Reimagining the sound of fresh snow

For a brief period over Christmas here in the UK, it snowed heavily, plunging much of central and northern England into a wintery wonderland.

While staying in Shepshed, Leicestershire, I took a midnight walk in the snow to produce this field recording, which has two notable snow sounds. One is the silence, the crunch of snow underfoot the only sound in a deserted village at midnight over Christmas – eerily quiet.

The second is the hum generated by a British Gas box installation in the street, creating an even, low drone that under normal circumstances you’d never hear over the sounds of daily life, but given the complete silence generated by the snow and the late hour, this drone was clearly audible from some distance.

The reimagined version builds the wooziness of the drone into the experience of walking in the snow, a slowed-down pulse of crisp footsteps built over treated and processed versions of the gas box drone to create what we think is a crystalline, mesmerising new piece.

City version:

Memory version: