Bells (church and cow) in the hills of Flüeli-Ranft, Switzerland in the evening of 6th December 2022 – by Charlie Shackleton
“There are three churches within earshot of the spot where this recording was made, in the Swiss village of Flüeli-Ranft, and their bells overlap but do not synchronise. A local told me that this is intentional, to ensure their distinct timbres can be clearly distinguished.
I was reminded of a wonderful Swiss film I saw earlier this year, Unrest, set in a 19th Century mountain town in which four marginally different time zones are observed simultaneously: one for the factory, one for the train station, one for the post office, and one for the church.
When all three churches fell silent, I was lucky enough to capture another set of bells—those worn by a herd of cows, invisible to me from my perch above the village stream—until the entire scene was drowned out by an overhead plane.”
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