Meditation on Erignathus

"There was something melancholy about the descending trill and the moan from these bearded seals that I wanted to capture and elaborate on. But there was also a distance to the seal sounds so I knew I wanted to keep the composition simple and subtle and not overpower their sounds. I used the original file in two different ways.

"On one track I extended the time, stretching out the sounds while also doing some aggressive de-noising to get rid of the background and white noise of the recording. The high-pitched pops and squeals and chirps are all from this track. The other use of the original used less aggressive processing to deal with the white noise, but enough to help focus on the sound of the descending trill and the soft moan of the seal. The music was created without the use of a strict tempo and instead responding to the two different altered tracks of the original file. I hope to have created a feeling of beauty, but one with a sense of loss and distance haunting it."

Bearded seal reimagined by Pria Wood.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds.