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Daniel Koestner - Balaena (bowhead whale)

from Polar Sounds by Cities and Memory

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about

I was mesmerized by this field recording. The bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) is the only surviving member of the genus Balaena. The song is inspired by my own encounter with a bowhead whale in the coastal Alaskan Arctic. I was on station in an ice field in September 2018, to do some field research. I remember seeing some object in the water and pointing it out to my colleagues. We decided it was a floating log. A few minutes passed; our boat had drifted closer to the object, bringing it into clearer view, transforming it into a sleeping bowhead whale. Each of us took a great pause and marveled at its breath just a moment before it gently disappeared into the depths.

The first part of the piece has a sort of muddiness to it that plays off the separation between us and these massive oceanic mammals. In the second part of the piece, there is a clarity which echoes one I’ve had when experiencing the imaginative leap required to enjoy something like whale watching. We really see so little of these creatures, even during the rare breaches. To seek out a whale is to seek out a glimpse made powerful through imagination and understanding. The last part is what I imagine swimming in the ocean as a whale is like.

The sort of negative space heard in many underwater recordings is so full and encompassing. I thought it was important to leave some of that “noise” in with an added filter and slow modulation to simulate the ocean waves. Beyond the noise, the song of this bowhead whale was also quite majestic and inspired me to harmonize with it while allowing the original bowhead song to fade in and out. There was also some interesting aliasing going on with the field recording which I mirrored in the first part of the piece. There are many layers to this piece, and, for me, it is quite fitting knowing that the ocean is deeply multidimensional and dynamic.

credits

from Polar Sounds, released February 6, 2023

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Cities and Memory Oxford, UK

Cities and Memory is one of the world’s biggest sound projects, a global, collaborative sound art and field recording programme with the aim of remixing the world, one sound at a time. It covers more than 100 countries and territories with 5,000+ sounds and more than 1,000 contributing artists.
Thousands of field recordings, recomposed and reimagined by artists around the world. ... more

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