The city sleeps, under a dark impenetrable sky. Streets, almost empty. Beneath invisible rainclouds, countless back gardens hold up their hands. Up, as high as they can reach, to catch the falling water. 
In one garden, sheltered under a wide tarpaulin, microphones are recording. Alone. On top of a tripod, and standing, as high as a person. Listening.
The tarpaulin, is to them a canvas. It lets them see the rain. In all its spatial detail. A transcriber. A taught thin surface, that catches each raindrop, and changes its collided imprint into crisp edged, spatial  sound. 
Drizzly white noise sheens. Sharp flurries of scattering pinpricks. Steady mesmerising rhythms. And the shadows, in time,  of the slow passing rain clouds.