A bit of white noise can help to get you into a nice, peaceful moment of Zen – be it for meditation, study or work, especially when music isn’t cutting it out for you. If you’re a fan of that, then streaming platform Earth.fm would be an excellent choice for you, as it offers the best kind for your listening pleasure: nature.
Though Earth.fm bills itself as the Spotify for natural soundscapes on its website, users aren’t required to subscribe or pay a fee in order to enjoy its various offerings. And on that note, the platform features a wide variety of sounds recorded from national parks, forests and so on from across the globe. These also include several locations from Malaysia, including Fraser Hill, Ulu Muda Forest Reserve, Kubah National Park and many others.
Most of its content is pre-recorded, with the exception of the Shiga Nature Education Park in Japan which is actually being streamed live. According to its About Us page, Earth.fm will add new sounds to its collection every three days, though it did not mention whether it plans to include more live streamed locations anytime soon.
Rather than providing you with recommendations like Spotify, the platform encourages you to explore its offerings via a built-in map. Featured locations are marked with a purple icon, and clicking on them will provide you with additional information such as the name of the location and its recordist, type of habitat, as well as the ability for you to play the audio. The player itself is located at the bottom of the screen.
Each soundscape you’ve listened to are automatically added to a playlist, therefore allowing you to replay them again at a later time – provided that you don’t clean your browser’s cookies after your visit. Currently, there’s no way for visitors to save a playlist on Earth.fm, so you’ll have to create a fresh one if you decide to load up the site from a different PC or so on.
Unfortunately, the platform also lacks a mobile app, which may disappoint those planning to tune into its natural soundscapes while on the go. You could always open up the website on your phone’s web browser, but that also means that you will have to keep your phone unlocked in order to continue listening.
In addition to its audio service, Earth.fm also features various essays and guides on nature via its website, as well as links to numerous environmental non-profit organisation charities from around the world.
