Tip! Tip! Tip! 2025 was declared the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation by the United Nations, accompanied by the proclamation of March 21st of each year as the World Day for Glaciers starting this year. As they put it, “this is an opportunity to raise global awareness about the critical role of glaciers, snow and ice in the climate system and the hydrological cycle, and the economic, social and environmental impacts of the impending changes in the Earth’s cryosphere.” To celebrate this decision forms of minutiae presents a series of albums dedicated to glaciers and the acoustic multiplicity of the ice with field recording works by Marc Namblard, Ludwig Berger, Yoichi Kamimura, Cheryl E. Leonard, and Pablo Diserens.
Sprinkled throughout the year, the series launches on World Day of Glaciers with the album "arctic summer", a journey across the sonic ecologies of Iceland and Svalbard, by wildlife sound recordist and nature guide Marc Namblard.
"arctic summer" and its 12 tracks form a long continuous piece which unfolds in a documentary fashion. Here, Namblard’s pristine recordings invite listeners into the estival effervescence of the two polar islands. Scenes follow one another in a delicate but bustling volcanic, animal, and glacial tapestry, whose dimensions materialize through the artist’s play on perspective and space. This meticulous composition enables us to eavesdrop both on the vastness and the minute of the cryosphere and the life it fosters. Birds and mammals cadence the album with distinct acoustic behaviors. The air is filled with puffin wing flutters, arctic tern shrills, golden plover sharp pings, kittiwake nasal cries, and the uncanny winnowing sound of common spines. Below, an arctic fox calls in the twilight, a whale spouts off the coast, and walruses growl, grunt, and exhale like washed up steaming engines. Yet these animal voices aren’t sounding alone. They are enveloped by the voices of geologies. Pebble-laden tides lead us to the beating volcanic heart that lies beneath the ground. Geothermal mud pools bubble in viscous drummings, while sulphur vents whistle in perpetual sighs. There are whispers in the slurry. The scorched soil swells. The Earth sizzles. Geyser! This scalding soundscape gradually evaporates into the heat of summer, bringing about the melting of the ice. In doing so, the ice shares a splendid variety both in form and sound. Glaciers crash in thundering calvings, icebergs drift in fizzling growls, while the moraine trickles in curtains of drops. The landscape thaws and leaks. The glaciers thin. The Earth oozes.
This melting pot of arctic bioacoustics weaves into an imaginary sound walk across the tundra, making Namblard’s profound affection for the environment palpable. His uncompromising delicacy is an invitation to listen to the cryosphere in order to better understand and nurture it. A cinema for the ears, "arctic summer" is a time capsule that maps the fragile soundscapes and ecosystems of a changing world.
