As you may know, in the niður/noise/szum project, field recordings are just one form of documenting Iceland’s sound. Apart from that, I talk to its inhabitants, mainly artists, but not only. Recently I had the opportunity to talk about the sounds of Iceland with John Snorri Sigurjónsson, climber, the first Icelandic conqueror of K2, Lhotse and Broad Peak. John, right now, is once again trying to get K2 in the winter – this has not been achieved by anyone in history. We talked about the wind, the differences in how it sounds in the Himalayas and in Iceland. “It is similar, but in the high mountains it is much colder and the wind screams at you,” said Snorri. “For me, the sound of Iceland is DIVERSITY. But if I were to take you to where my sound is, it would probably be a glacier. For example, Sólheimajökull – he added.
And this is the second of my interlocutors who indicated this place. So this time for you, the sound comes from the depths of the glacier, that is, from the crevice. Crevices are widely heard and read in the context of the Himalayas. They hide from the wind in crevices, they fall into crevices and avoid crevices. Thanks to the support of my wonderful guide Agata Jabłońska (once again: I recommend her!), I managed to go down to the crack and record while hanging on a rope, leaning my back against one wall and my legs against the other. In the recording you will hear how the glacier melts in a second – a single drip turns into the sound of a stream. Forgive the gasping noises and the rustle of the jacket. I have never recorded in such conditions before 🙂
