Sounding with the whales

"I listened for a long time to the field recording.  There is the haunting sounds of the Bowhead whales, buried deep within the ambient sounds surrounding them.  I was inspired by the melody and musical slides (or moans!) I could hear in the whale calls. The constant ambient sound of the environment, and perhaps of scientific equipment also, was a sonic companion within the field recording, and I imagined a seascape of musical ideas playing with the whale sounds under the ice, for the composition. I sampled acoustic musicians to create a composition to weave around and play with the whales' calls, at times imitating the various melodies and ambient noises.  I also played with subtly panning the various sampled instruments - as a kind of echo to the whales' songs which often signal geographic locations to others. All the while, also informing the composition, is the tragic  rapidly changing environment these beautiful animals are navigating.

Sampled musicians:
Gideon Brazil: saxophone & bass clarinet
Rodrigo Salgado: double bass
Elissa Goodrich: vibraphone"

Bowhead whale reimagined by Elissa Goodrich.

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.