Leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx)
In leopard seals, females are larger than males, which is more common in aquatic animals than it is in terrestrial animal species. During the breeding period PALAOA detects vocalizations of both male and female leopard seals. Due to the fact that leopard seals are solitary animals, they are thought to use their vocalizations mainly to find a mate during the breeding season. Seven distinct leopa...
1m Jan 14, 2023
1m
Sirens of Antarctica
"This is my take on global warming and war, both of which are human made real threats to all life of earth. "Named after the British explorer James Clark Ross, who obtained the first specimen during his Antarctic expedition with war ships HMS Erebus and Terror 1839 -1843, less is known about the Ross seal than any of the other Antarctic seals. The species is mostly found on the extremely hard ...
2m Jan 14, 2023
2m
As above, so below
"As soon as I heard the sounds of the Ross seals, they reminded me of recordings of space weather radio waves that are made audible through the use of ground-based radio receivers. This so-called ‘natural radio’ from the Earth’s magnetosphere can be caused by space weather phenomena, like solar winds, as well as lightning, and even the auroras - the Northern & Southern lights. Combining the eth...
2m Jan 14, 2023
2m
Sirens of the pack ice
"My vision for this project was to create and perform a composition for solo khaen, the bamboo free-reed mouth organ of Laos and Northeast Thailand, situated inside an imaginary underwater Antarctic soundscape. I have been composing and performing contemporary works for the khaen for almost 30 years and am always seeking new contexts to feature this beautiful instrument. "The Ross seal’s remar...
10m Jan 14, 2023
10m
Longing
"The loud calls of the leopard seal taken as they are. In their depth, in their vibration, with the trills, in their height, then added my voice. Now I, too, calling under water... My voice recorded, changed and approximated to the vocalization of the leopard seal. I listen carefully to them: Longing heard, sadness heard and I answer with a melody on my violin... a melody for all the gigantic l...
3m Jan 14, 2023
3m
Then until now
"Leopard seals are curious creatures, they’re relatively unstudied mammals. Seven leopard seal vocalizations were recorded, mirrored by the seven instruments in the song; a drum kit, stick percussion, a Jupiter pad, acoustic strings, a piano, and two synthesizer leads played on a Memorymoog. "The field recordings appear in various forms throughout the track. Firstly, the white noise of the rec...
5m Jan 14, 2023
5m
Briefest encounter
"I found the recordings of Ross Seals spell binding.  The creative challenge was how to best work with their beautiful calls.  These rare seals live out on the pack ice of Antarctica.  I reflected on what the future holds for them, as temperatures rise and sea ice is predicted to disappear completely in the polar regions during the summer months.  I chose a narrative approach to the piece.  The...
6m Jan 14, 2023
6m
Deep blanco
"Deep Blanco uses sounds from a recording of Ross seals that was captured at the PALAOA observatory 71°S 008°W (-70.516667 8.216667) (PerenniAL Acoustic Observatory in the Antarctic Ocean is AWI’s listening station north of the German Antarctic Neumayer station). The work aims to create a ‘sonic eco-system’ where the sounds made by the Ross seals encounter and are encontered by those made by hu...
5m Jan 14, 2023
5m
Majestic mammalia
"I pretty much used the Humpback whale sound in its' entirety, employing a bit of Izotope to remove some of the extra ambient noise. "Then warped in Ableton to create a loop out of it, adding some extra delay and reverb. I kept all the extra clicks etc. as I didn't want to take too much away from the original sound. "The field recording has a fragile, beautiful mood to it, which is how I star...
3m Jan 13, 2023
3m
In the depths of
"While I was listening to “the Crabeater call”, I imagined to see the animal in its own natural environment and I thought that it was very nice: this was the feeling of my inspiration, from here my composition was born. "It is divided into three parts: in the first one, I describe the environment where the Crabeater lives, in  the second part I show my heartache for the current situation of po...
5m Jan 13, 2023
5m
The crabeater seal (Lobodon carcinophaga), recording 2
The crabeater seal vocalizes mainly during the breeding season between October and December. Although the males do not defend underwater territories, they are thought to guard a single female on the ice until she is ready for mating and conception. The crabeater seal vocal repertoire we have consists of two call types. The examples are the typical low moan which is emitted most often. Recordin...
14s Jan 13, 2023
14s
The crabeater seal (Lobodon carcinophaga), recording 1
The crabeater seal vocalizes mainly during the breeding season between October and December. Although the males do not defend underwater territories, they are thought to guard a single female on the ice until she is ready for mating and conception. The crabeater seal vocal repertoire we have consists of two call types. The examples are the typical low moan which is emitted most often. At 15s th...
5m Jan 13, 2023
5m
The sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus)
Sperm whales produce a variety of clicking sounds. During foraging dives they use clicks to localize prey by emitting regular clicks and so-called creaks (short series of clicks with fast repetition rate, close to prey encounter). In social context they produce codas which are repeated patterns of clicks. Different groups of sperm whales use different codas (dialects) and within a group codas c...
5m Jan 13, 2023
5m
The humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), recording 2
The typical whale songs which are known from various popular media, are usually produced by humpback whales. The Southern Hemisphere humpback whales spend the summer in the Southern Ocean to feed as much as possible. Reproduction and breeding mainly take place in tropical waters. At PALAOA, only humpback whale social sounds such as the ones in the spectrograms have been recorded. Humpback whale...
28s Jan 13, 2023
28s
The humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), recording 1
The typical whale songs which are known from various popular media, are usually produced by humpback whales. The Southern Hemisphere humpback whales spend the summer in the Southern Ocean to feed as much as possible. Reproduction and breeding mainly take place in tropical waters. At PALAOA, only humpback whale social sounds such as the ones in the spectrograms have been recorded. Humpback whale...
9s Jan 13, 2023
9s
I think they are trying to tell us something
"I dream of being able to understand what these amazing creatures are communicating, with each other, to other sea creatures and with us. The percussive communication of the sperm whale almost sounded like an old computer keyboard, typing us out a message, trying to convey with an intense urgency some vital information. "I put all the elements together that I wanted to perform with then presse...
19m Jan 13, 2023
19m
Deep discourse
"When choosing my inspiration for my piece, the sperm whale sample shone through the rest. I found the way they communicate with one another fascinating - being the loudest animals in the world, their codas are crucial not only as a way of hunting but connecting with one another. "I wanted to emulate their communicative clicks in my piece by utilising binaural panning to add a sense of depth a...
3m Jan 13, 2023
3m
CrossWave
"The field recording is multilayered which inspired me a lot, I want people to listen to the beautiful sound of the crabeater seal calls. So, in the beginning it was difficult to create something different or reimagine it. I have not done much but just combined it with a field recording of thunder and rain from my city Kolkata. It's an imagination about the presence of crabeater seals in my cit...
3m Jan 13, 2023
3m
Megaptera novaeangliae
"I have really enjoyed taking part in a project which involves science/art collaboration and am intrigued by the fact that scientific research is using acoustic data as a tool to understand the polar seas and marine animals. "My chosen recording was of a humpback whale, (megaptera novaeangliae), recorded at the Alfred Wegner Institute’s listening station at Palaoa observatory in the Antarctic ...
5m Jan 13, 2023
5m
The heaviness lights
"The more I listened to this whale, the more I felt and wanted to communicate along with it.  There has been a lot of loss this year for so many and the experience of listening to this whale sound became a special experience that I wanted prolong and accentuate.  I felt compelled to add one of my field recordings of wind alongside the whale and the more I listened, the more musical and orchestr...
9m Jan 13, 2023
9m
Antarctic purrrumble
"This is an interspecies love song, it is of a polyamorous love, a response to a mating call heard via a field recording out of time and out of place, supposed for another sensory system, that of more-than-human beings. The crabeater seal vocalizes mainly during the breeding season between October and December. Although the males do not defend underwater territories, they are thought to guard a...
8m Jan 13, 2023
8m
Voces en el Mar Polar
"I found the sounds extremely interesting, they are almost like synths with an intriguing percussive and timbrical character. I first chopped the entire recording into 3 different folders: ambient sound, warble noises and grunt noises. I ran every folder in the AudioStellar software to generate sequences altering pitches and envelopes. "Then I used some digital processes such as granular synth...
7m Jan 13, 2023
7m
Sea creatures
 "The raw recording had me thinking of an underwater band of sea animals coming together to jam and make new music, thus the title of the track is Sea Creatures. As the sound of one "band member" travels through the ocean, more members start joining in and offering their contributions until a chaotic jam unfolds which then quickly dissipates through the ocean." Killer whale and Ross seals reim...
7m Jan 13, 2023
7m
Killer whale, Ross seals and violin
"I am a classical jazz and avant-garde improviser/composer and I was really excited at the prospect of improvising and engaging with these rare polar sounds. Initially my plan was to begin with the field recording alone, using the natural sonic ideas as a base and source of material for my later improvisation, bringing in the field recording at the end in a musically symbiotic way. I felt this ...
9m Jan 13, 2023
9m
Killer whale and Ross seals, recording 1
In the Southern Ocean, three killer whale ecotypes co-exist which are specialized on different prey species and vary slightly in their visual appearance. Killer whales, also called Orcas, produce a variety of vocalizations, for example whistles, pulsed calls and echolocation clicks. In the sound snippet you hear lots of calls and mainly pulsed calls. Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener ...
2m Jan 13, 2023
2m
Fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus), recording 3
Fin whales produce a variety of short low frequency calls, of which the 20 Hz pulse is most prominent (i.e., a downsweep ranging from around 30-15 Hz) and produced by fin whales worldwide.  We record this call most frequently in the vicinity of Elephant Island, off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, where the 20 Hz pulse also often contains a higher frequency component around 89 Hz. ...
2m Jan 13, 2023
2m
Killer whale and Ross seals, recording 2
In the Southern Ocean, three killer whale ecotypes co-exist which are specialized on different prey species and vary slightly in their visual appearance. Killer whales, also called Orcas, produce a variety of vocalizations, for example whistles, pulsed calls and echolocation clicks. In the sound snippet you hear lots of calls and mainly pulsed calls. Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener ...
1m Jan 13, 2023
1m
The killer whale (Orcinus orca)
In the Southern Ocean, three killer whale ecotypes co-exist which are specialized on different prey species and vary slightly in their visual appearance. Killer whales, also called Orcas, produce a variety of vocalizations, for example whistles, pulsed calls and echolocation clicks. In the sound snippet you hear lots of calls and mainly pulsed calls. Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener ...
1m Jan 13, 2023
1m
Fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus), recording 2
Fin whales produce a variety of short low frequency calls, of which the 20 Hz pulse is most prominent (i.e., a downsweep ranging from around 30-15 Hz) and produced by fin whales worldwide.  We record this call most frequently in the vicinity of Elephant Island, off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, where the 20 Hz pulse also often contains a higher frequency component around 89 Hz. ...
2m Jan 13, 2023
2m
Whale walking
"In the development of Whale Walking, I used the recording of a killer whale as my starting point. After listening to the track on repeat over time, I decided I would try and create a broader world for the whale with the help of and a series of field recordings I had made of water flowing above ground and below ground, using hydrophones and a geofone. These recordings were made in the West Fjor...
4m Jan 13, 2023
4m
Oceana - The underwater world of Orca and Ross
"The Polar Sounds project is a great opportunity to both literally share and develop an augmented reality of the wonderful sounds of the Antarctic.  It inspired me to create my imaginary sub-seascape: Oceana - The Underwater World of Orca and Ross. I enjoy bringing attention to the importance, fragility and beauty of the natural world through creations of magical soundscapes and enhancing sound...
10m Jan 13, 2023
10m
Record keeper
 "Exhilarated, I listen to a fleeting moment, getting a glimpse into its magical world. A record keeper of all time. "Its gracefulness brings me peace. "Limited by my senses, merely scratching a surface, I imagine a sonic sphere, the transformative vessel. "Pulses carrying the pattern. I dive into the unknown, creating a response to its call." Fin whale reimagined by Þóranna Dögg Björnsdótt...
6m Jan 13, 2023
6m
An imaginary coldscape
"I composed my piece using samples of winter storms, ice cracking and windchimes, in addition to the original recording. "I started from the idea of imagining the sound environment where the fin whale live. The original recording gave me the idea to work with different frequencies, representing the different levels of an environment. In that way, the 20 hz pulse that the fin whale emit represe...
6m Jan 13, 2023
6m
Spectrum garden
 "When first listening I was overwhelmed by the density and how alien the sounds were. I felt a need to understand them, and to do so I dissected them. They turned out to be well separable in the frequency spectrum, and I then slowed the separate sounds down by orders of magnitude, like using a microscope. "To understand them even better, I decided to create a composition in which I put them t...
7m Jan 13, 2023
7m
Acoustic encounters of a fin whale
"This piece features a fin whale's journey through the polar soundscape. Due to its enormous size, the fin whale (the second longest whale on the planet) produces a very low frequency (20 Hz) pulse, reaching the lower end of the human hearing range. Based on the recording of a fin whale, a tune was composed, revolving around the reoccurring low frequency pulses. "The inspiration for this piece...
5m Jan 13, 2023
5m
Siren
Killer whale reimagined by Cheryl Beer. "Siren is a warning from the core of crisis. Environmental sound artist Cheryl Beer has created a haunting soundbite from the pulsed calls of killer whales in the Antarctic. First, she reduced the revolutions, slowing down the vocalisations x100. This enabled a distinction between each individual sound & revealed some surprising textures. Everything you ...
2m Jan 13, 2023
2m
Anxiety
"I chose a very strange recording. "On the one hand, it is natural, but on the other hand it sounds technogenic. I decided that all the sounds will be made from one file and they filled me to the maximum, chasing the longing for the lost home. "The name anxiety does not even refer to music, but to the situation in which the world is now. "And in this nervous similarity between natural and te...
13m Jan 13, 2023
13m
Upstream (the Seine)
"Last May an Orca was found to be swimming upstream the Seine. An effort to redirect the mammal back to the sea by using sound recordings failed as the animal seemed to be gravely ill and disoriented. Bioacoustics experts mentioned that the sounds the animal was producing were most likely distress calls. A decision to euthanise the whale was taken, yet soon enough, the mammal was found dead. "...
5m Jan 13, 2023
5m
Hoot
"The idea started by analyzing the field recording, and adding more instruments to play the same notes. Then I took a part of the field recording, and analyzed its rhythm and tempo and put it as the base of the track, then I recorded percussion and guitars. The field recording inspired me in the sense of trying to use it as an instrument, and as a composition tool at the same time, with the sou...
3m Jan 10, 2023
3m
Fin and glacier
"The sounds themselves are very low pitched, below the human range of hearing in many cases. In order to best make use of the recording, I took chunk and pitched them up from 1-3 octaves. From there, I processed the sounds with filters, reverbs, more pitch bending, delays, and time stretching tools to create interesting pads, swells, and percussion. "The long atonal pads you hear throughout th...
3m Jan 10, 2023
3m
Fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus), recording 1
Fin whales produce a variety of short low frequency calls, of which the 20 Hz pulse is most prominent (i.e., a downsweep ranging from around 30-15 Hz) and produced by fin whales worldwide.  We record this call most frequently in the vicinity of Elephant Island, off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, where the 20 Hz pulse also often contains a higher frequency component around 89 Hz. ...
2m Jan 10, 2023
2m
The Antarctic Minke Whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis)
The Antarctic minke whale is the smallest baleen whale occurring in the Southern Ocean. It is regularly sighted near the sea ice edge but also occurs within the pack ice. The Antarctic minke whale produces a very unique sound called "bio-duck" which are repetitive sequences of pulsed sounds between 50 – 300 Hz with harmonics up to 1500 Hz. Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, ...
5m Jan 10, 2023
5m
The Antarctic blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus intermedia), recording 2
The low frequency calls of Antarctic blue whales belong to the loudest vocalizations produced by any animal. Most likely blue whales use calls to communicate over long distances. PALAOA records different Antarctic blue whale vocalizations. The spectrogram shows the 'Z-call' which is a population-specific song produced by Antarctic blue whales in the Southern Ocean as well as on their lower lati...
1m Jan 10, 2023
1m
The Antarctic blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus intermedia), recording 3
The low frequency calls of Antarctic blue whales belong to the loudest vocalizations produced by any animal. Most likely blue whales use calls to communicate over long distances. PALAOA records different Antarctic blue whale vocalizations. The spectrogram shows the 'Z-call' which is a population-specific song produced by Antarctic blue whales in the Southern Ocean as well as on their lower lati...
1m Jan 10, 2023
1m
The Antarctic blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus intermedia), recording 1
Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022. Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (https://hifmb.de/) (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (https://www.awi.de/en/) (AWI). Explore the ...
2m Jan 10, 2023
2m
Polarchitecture 10
"I work with chance operations/indeterminacy (among other things), so I asked to get assigned a random sound clip (which I hadn’t heard in advance) to work with. My aim then was to build a sonic architecture out of this sound, but without pre-shaping/pre-conceiving this architecture, working with the sound clip as a sculptor-architect would with clay, wood, stone or some other material. I edite...
7m Jan 10, 2023
7m
Fin whale mod
"The faint voice of the fin whale is produced by shaking the sound-producing organs. The sound resonates with the resonance of wind instruments." Fin whale reimagined by Keisuke Oki. Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (https://hifmb.de/) (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Cent...
5m Jan 10, 2023
5m
In reverence of a blue heart
"The sub-frequency calls of the planet's largest animal, the endangered Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus), are too low for human ears to perceive. But this inspired some questions: What might these low frequencies feel like? What new sensations might arise? Would these feelings enter our subconscious? If I could play my bass flute deep into the waters of the Antarctic, how might I  converse wi...
8m Jan 10, 2023
8m
Aural ant whale
"The composition began inspired by the rhythmic part of the original recording, with the idea that the whole piece would follow that rhythmic pattern. But soon in the process this was changing and was leading to a more textural work, although it maintains some of that initial rhythm. "In addition to using the chosen sound and subjecting it to different digital and analog processes, synthesizer...
6m Jan 10, 2023
6m
Apnea
"Traveling through a submerged world, in "Apnea", all the threads that reach me are at a digital sonic level, because the only possibility of being able to hear is within this spectrum. "What would be the inverse in the hearing of these ocean giants? For a visitor like me, now, here with them, is to pass through my body like vibrations of a possible translation from communication to exaggerati...
9m Jan 10, 2023
9m