Weather station on Utö, Finland

Published on: 11th October 2016 Published in: Utö

Today we pay a visit to one of the most remote spots in the Baltic Sea, the tiny island of Utö – a four-hour ferry journey from Turku in Finland.

One of the most prominent features of the island is a weather station alongside the 200-year-old lighthouse, with radio antennae and rotating radar dishes above it that pump out a regular thrumming sound to disrupt the otherwise-idyllic peace of the island (if you’re close enough to it).

For the reimagined Utö sound, we’ve gone for something pretty and delicate, with some light piano arpeggios leading into a section led by synths and a simple drum pattern.

This is overlaid by clips from the Finnish weather forecast (the cousin of the UK’s shipping forecast), to underline the important role the weather station plays.

The title, “The sigh of all the seas breaking in measure”, is taken from Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse.

City version:

Memory version:

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