Chilled beats

February 20, 2013 11:02 PM

Ice Music - ethereal, Nordic ambient created with percussion instruments made out of ice
posted by Blazecock Pileon (5 comments total)

It's been a cold winter here in Lake Wobegone Michigan, and the lakes have a fairly healthy layer of ice. I also have a Husky, who, at this time of year, unlike its preferences in the summer when she avoids the heat and lays in front of an airconditioning duct, just loves to fake needing to go outside to pee only because she just wants to go outside where it is cold, very, very, cold.

Wanting to accomodate what she presents as her effort to not pee on the floor, I usually take her out, after all, the back yard is surrounded by woods, we sometimes see deer and other wildlife, and it gets me away from the computer for a while, so all is good. Even if she is faking, we go out and hang around in the weather and insects, she sniffs, I look for interesting stuff, smell the night air, and watch the stars.

All is well and good with this until about February. When the wind starts blowing off the lake, and the temps drop into the single figures (no matter which side of that -0- they are, when the air is in that range, its too cold for my thin skinned, non-furred comfort), then the system starts to fall apart for the dog and she begines to realize that I'm good for about one trip out each night in my quest to not freeze my ass off.

That's the point at which she summons, as Huskies seem to be able to do, the ice gods and requests a concert. At those temperatures the lake can no longer contain the growth of the ice and the giant crystal on the surface starts to push against the shore and the seawalls as it expands. But, the earth is stronger than the ice and doesn't give, it doesn't move to accomodate that larger plate of frozen water. So the ice, in it's attempt to find more space, pushes against itself, and raises up in places as one side of the lake ice competes with the other side. And that is where the real ice music comes from.

Just as I'm about to tell Husky that she's never going outside until the weather gets warmer, she drags me out for one last trip and I hear the concert of ice cracks booming across the lake. The frequency and tone moderated by the length of the crack and the thickness of the ice. It's a metallic twang and bass filled ripping sound in stereo as it races from the west shore to the east. And I stand there, in the cold, listening to the song composed by the elements, and I forget how cold it is. The Husky just smiles and goes off to sniff some more rabbit tracks and knows that she has at least a few more trips out in the bitter cold without my complaining the whole time, she's managed to distract me.

These musicians you've presented in this FPP are making an honest effort to harness the ice, but, until their instruments are miles wide and they let the ice take control, they'll not match the nightly percussions I hear off of Portage Lake.
posted by HuronBob at 3:43 AM on February 21, 2013 [6 favorites]

I dug the dulcet, calming tones - and had a dig around this guy's music, and sent it to a friend in Norway who's just had a baby. The ice is melting there right now.
posted by a non e mouse at 3:44 AM on February 21, 2013

Straight outta Norway.

Crazy motherfucker plays ice cubes.
posted by edheil at 6:03 AM on February 21, 2013 [7 favorites]

This is really cool.
posted by kinnakeet at 6:26 AM on February 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

I saw Terje Isungset last weekend! He had a vocalist with him, too. They built their instruments out of ice cut from a local lake the morning of the show. It was pretty cool. Our toes froze standing in place for 45 minutes at -15°C however.
posted by looli at 7:13 AM on February 21, 2013