Today, on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’, brilliant wildlife sound recordist John Paterson arrives in Ecuador on behalf of Ginkgo Music to begin making recordings for Tropical Forest Project: Ecuador.

There are many perfectly good recordings of individual birdsongs by ornithologists, but John belongs to a small group of expert sound recordists who specialise in making recordings in nature that vividly bring to life stunning and detailed 3-dimensional soundworlds in crystal clear stereo. We asked him if he would record for the album ambient forest soundscapes and birdsong from the forest reserves that the project is benefiting.

Our vision is that brief (eg. 10-45 second) extracts will be introduced between some of the tracks to add vividness to the whole project. Robert Wyatt introduced a complete silent break into the middle of his Cuckooland album, and our thinking is that these short interludes will create clusterings of tracks punctuated by moments of forest soundscape. I guess we could call these ‘forest clearings’.

It is perfect that he arrives on this day of all days…