ARCTIC SOUNDS
Inuit throat singing duo Silla at Aqqutikitsoq Glacier
“ WE ARE USING MUSIC TO TELL THE STORY OF CLIMATE CHANGE .”
– RUTH DANIEL people ’ s hearts and minds , inspiring a clear call to action and unifying a movement to stop climate change .
As well as the creation of a record label with a roster of artists reworking the sounds of climate change in the natural environment , including everything from whale songs to receding glaciers , a key element of the plan is to stage and stream live concerts featuring indigenous artists in disappearing environments .
As a result , Daniel is at Arctic Sounds with Bicep sound engineer Dom Morris and Andrew Melchior ; a creative technologist and producer who is Massive Attack ’ s chief technical officer and has worked extensively with acts including David Bowie and Björk . Their plan is to stage an event on Greenland ’ s Russell Glacier at next year ’ s Arctic Sounds and stream it around the world . That will be followed by performances at other sites including a polluted river in Brazil and a melting frozen sea in Finland .
“ The big theme that led us to form EarthSonic is using music to tell the story
Faroese musician and composer Teitur
of climate change and to inspire young people to take action by creating unique musical happenings ,” she says .
The plan for the Russell Glacier event is to stage a performance by indigenous artists of work they have created with overseas acts , including Bicep , that will be released as an album . Among the acts involved are Greenlandic rapper Tarrak , local death metal band Sound of the Damned and Inuit throat singing duo Silla .
The Russell Glacier performance will be streamed on Earth Day 2025 via partners including BBC , Resident Advisor , The Guardian and Beatport , and at venues including Outernet London and IMAX . It will form part of a four-year programme of climate change awareness generating activities supported by a major PR campaign and ambassadors including Brian Eno .
Melchior is set to production manage the glacier show , working with Arctic Sounds ’ tech crew and the In Place of War team . He is also involved in side projects including one designed to get local young people engaged not only in monitoring the impact of climate change but also creating music from it .
He says , “ Because this town has got such a strong academic energy , where people are really keen to learn about technology , Jacob and I thought it might be fun to do a project where we get cheap minicomputers , such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi , and run classes with children teaching them to design their own sensor , distribute and maintain them . It would be a mass observational exercise , and then when we ' ve got the data collated the idea would be to create a sequencer that was , in essence , creating generative music .”
Daniel says working with Froberg and the team at Arctic Sounds has been instrumental : “ It has been the absolute pinnacle of the project . What ’ s great about Arctic Sounds is that it is a festival by night but then you have these opportunities by day to have conversations with the artists about what the music means and why it ' s important to preserve the local culture , and to understand better what ’ s been happening here with climate change and what that means for the future .”
30 accessaa . co . uk