The wind in the rushes on St. Ninian's Isle

This is the sound of the wind passing through rushes on top of St. Ninian's Isle. I was there walking with my friends Lisa and Kait, when I espied a big clump of rushes and instantly wanted to hear what it sounded like up close. I rushed over and buried my Naiant X-X omni-directionals deep into the leaves, then sat back and listened with my own ears to the lovely textures of those plants being stirred by the wind. It's hard to record the wind directly, but I like how you can hear it indirectly here, in the shuffle and abrading of thick green leaves moving together under its force. I love how the gusts - the swell and decay of the wind - are also somehow evident here in the way it is teasing the rushes. You can also hear in the recording some small drifts of conversation - more a sound than individual words - from Kait and Lisa, who were sat further up the hill from me, waiting for me. It was a beautiful Sunday evening, and there were sheep all around us. Lisa was trying to photograph them, while I was trying to document some aspects of the sonic textures that surround them where they graze in this maritime context. I think they were actually Suffolks and not Shetland sheep, so these sounds are perhaps not strictly speaking directly related to woollen industries, (Suffolks are grown more for meat in general) but I think there is something amazing in being able to hear reeds/rushes/the ocean roar/seabirds so close to where sheep are grazing. The proximity of farmland and sea is quite particular to Shetland, and defines the conditions for a crofting lifestyle in which knitwear and fish were historically the main currencies produced on each croft. In this recording I like to think that you can hear how the soil and the sea sit beside each other where sheep graze, both swept by the wind and cruised by seabirds.