Iceland

As a special Explores project to recognize Earth Day, Charles Van Kirk & Splice's Josh Robertson visited Iceland's Vatnajökull Glacier and National Park, the largest glacier in Europe. Our intention is to create a sonic tribute to this incredible formation of ice. There is a sense of urgency to record these sounds before the well-documented recession of glaciers continues further as a result of climate change. A variety of microphones were used, including a 5.1 channel surround mic, and pressure sensitive mics (placed directly on the ice) to capture tonal and percussive sounds. We treated pieces of ice as percussion instruments playing them with hands, mallets and other implements. The natural sounds of the glacier were also captured - creaks and groans, massive ice serac collapses, glacial melting and runoff, and massive echoes. Charlie used the recordings as a springboard for sound design and manipulation upon returning to New York, using Sensory Percussion developed by Sunhouse to play the sounds of the ice.

NOTE: Please refer to the documentation for your DAW to confirm it supports multichannel WAV files before downloading the "5.1 Surround Bonus Sounds."