A hum without a clearly identifiable source

Returning from recording the water trickling through a small dam and then a stream rushing beneath a frozen bridge when I decided to capture the crunch of my footfalls in the deep snow that covered the valley, remembering that sounds connected to walking had often been mentioned by participants in our soundwalks. After one hundred or so steps, I became aware of another sound in my headphones, a low-pitched hum, the kind I associate with electricity. Checking that the batteries were fine on the recorder and the microphone, confirming all cables were securely connected and making sure my phone was off, I realised that the sound was external and environmental. In the relatively dry air there was no coronal discharge and this borrowed mic (a Sennhesier ME-66) was one of the most expensive I've used and surely shielded. The sound didn't seem to be coming from the lamps that were just going on above me, nor from the wires stretched between the wooden poles that contained their power supplies. Although the steady sound was strongest at the junction of the cross-country ski trail and the pedestrians' path, I couldn't narrow the source any further. And yet, this was precisely where T had told us she "heard the sound of electricity" in 2022, a claim I'd always read as metaphorical rather than literal: it is not the loudest of sounds but a definite presence, alongside my own motor-movements, the clicking of a loose cable against my bag and the flight sounds carrying across the fjord from the airport.