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Central to these recordings are the waters of Russia's White Sea, cradling the city of Arkhangelsk, which is a hugely important port for these northern climes - since everything else is frozen solid. The waters of the White Sea are more suitable for submarines than ships, perhaps. According to that same logic, deep below the ice live large numbers of white whales - or belugas - whose name comes from the Russian adjective for "white": belyi.
One of the less scientific terms for these marine mammals is "sea canary," since they transmit a song that's very different to the resonant rumble of larger whales. Gentle in nature, these 5-meter animals communicate with one another in high, chirruping sounds throughout the Earth's Arctic seas. There's a sad irony to the fact that belugas, although extremely sociable, are - because of that same tendency towards interaction, rather than violence - now endangered.
Precisely because they interact so much, they're more open to attack; their raison d'etre, in some ways, is also their downfall.
Rarely seen by people on the surface, belugas are more often heard. One of the best-known scholars of this bird-like, endangered song is American author, filmmaker, and musician David Rothenberg. In his own terms, Rothenberg "has written and performed on the relationship between humanity and nature for many years. He is the author of Why Birds Sing, on making music with birds, also published in England, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, China, Korea, and Germany. It was turned into a feature length BBC TV documentary. His most recent book, Thousand Mile Song, is on making music with whales."
This connection with music comes from the fact that Rothenberg is also a composer and jazz clarinetist. In Thousand Mile Song he makes the following claim: "Whale song is an astonishing world of sound whose existence no one suspected before the 1960s. Its discovery has forced us to confront the possibility of alien intelligence--not in outer space but right here on earth..." By combining the conversations between belugas, typically in Russia and Hawaii, Rothenberg "attempts to make 'interspecies music' the likes of which no one has ever heard, by playing his clarinet with whales[!] in their native habitats..."
Whale song is an astonishing world of sound whose existence no one suspected before the 1960s. Its discovery has forced us to confront the possibility of alien intelligence--not in outer space but right here on earth...
These American endeavors, conducted around (and under) the White Sea, bring us to the Russian musicians shown in this post. Together they have just finished a project known as "Whale Kit." In the PR materials we read that: "Whale Kit is a Russian audiovisual collaborative project between five electronic acts, a VJ, and some whales. These musicians have composed original tracks based on recordings of whales' voices, resulting in a unique performance that's also supported by a thematically-related VJ set."
The inspiration for these Russian efforts was the work of Rothenberg, since his Whale Music Remixed CD included a couple of tracks designed to be remixed and re-released by any interested party. This challenge was taken up, fittingly enough, in the northern Russian city of Petrozavodsk, home to most of the artists discussed here. More specifically, the participants in Whale Kit, having listened to Rothenberg's work, suddenly "had the idea to use those recordings for our own compositions. We wanted to see how whales could inspire each of us - and where, musically speaking, those sounds would take us."
To the American tapes, the sounds of more local belugas were added, thanks to Roman Belikov from Moscow's Institute of Marine Science. More specifically, the new noises came from the waters around the Solovetsky Islands. Each of the musical outfits shown here made its own remix/compositions based upon those scientifically-captured songs. Whenever performed live, these melanges of music and maritime science are accompanied by what Whale Kit calls the "mixing and mutation of different videos showing whales and birds, together with the [planet's] seas and landscapes."
The resulting audio files, now including a humpback whale from Hawaii(!), have not only been spliced with electronic music from our local Karelian participants, they've also been made available as polished examples of streaming audio from the project website.
These musicians, as mentioned, are very much a reflection of local talent. In no particular order, they are as follows: ADD (aka Viktor Shubin and Igor Bogdanov), both from Petrozavodsk and about whom we've written before. As we pointed out at the time, "the first thing that strikes most online visitors to their resources is a bold tag-line, which they use constantly to define themselves within the local music scene: 'The Karelian Magicians of Glitch.'”
We continued: "That turn of phrase has a special and specifically local aura if we consider the band’s whereabouts. As we normally point out in reference to Karelia, this is the territory that runs north of St Petersburg along the Finnish border. It's a flat region, densely populated with fir trees, fairies, and – no doubt – other wizards."
That turn of phrase has a special and specifically local aura if we consider the band’s whereabouts. As we normally point out in reference to Karelia, this is the territory that runs north of St Petersburg along the Finnish border. It's a flat region, densely populated with fir trees, fairies, and – no doubt – other wizards.
That same sense of deep wonder has now passed underwater.
Next is Sergey (Sergei) Suokas, shown above and a familiar name to readers of this site, either in his traditional guise or - as here - within the confines of side-project, Slow. The PR phrasing used to contextualize his work for Whale Kit brands his contribution as "innovative and varied ambient and collage electronics with a deep, impressive sound." Again the sense of immersion is uppermost, albeit into water, rather than the woods.
The music offered here by the marvelous Cycle Hiccups (aka Aleksandr Velikoselskii) is tagged as "live, looping, and improvisational vocals." The combination of lopping repetition with his colleagues' metaphors of maritime depth almost gives these recordings a mantric intent. The more insistent the repetitions, the greater that sense of immersion. A musical form of sonar, perhaps...
These broadly sketched intentions adopt slightly more concrete forms with the terminology used to introduce techno producer Rodion Stankevich, also a local luminary, and friend/colleague Andrei Iioudine, shown above and known on stage as Artificial Intelligence. Here we're promised "retrofuturistic synth-pop with lots of vintage synth sounds and a Soviet-style romanticism." Simultaneously nostalgic and hopeful for the future, Iioudine's phrasing here speaks of a state that simply endures, both "now" and "then." It neither fades away nor arrives in full.
This same enveloping or immersive state is evoked by "looping, improvisational patterns" that mirror the "deep" forests of Karelia, rich in wizards and other kind-hearted beings.
Life beneath the White Sea appears much as it ought to be on the streets of Petrozavodsk. The romance of these waters is more than understandable, even beneath two meters of ice. Peace, quiet, and the songs of sea canaries are assured.
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