Music

Tracklist

Instrumental Pieces

Shards From Antarctica

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1. Happiness Is Ice

Antarctica is 98% covered by an ice sheet that averages about 1.5 miles in thickness, which is relentlessly flowing to the coasts via glaciers. All coastal and marine-based species such as seals, penguins, birds, fish, whales and krill are dependent on sea ice for food and breeding. Any half-aware person today knows that the rate of melting of the earth’s ice is speeding up, to a devastating level not yet imagined.

Our track is an ode of joy to ice, the remarkable solid state of water that acts as the earth’s thermostat.

Happiness Is Ice

2. Antarctica Olé

Antarctica has commonly been seen as the focus of English-speaking and European countries and cultures. South American countries, primarily Chile and Argentina, which are the closest to the continent, also have a long history of presence in the Antarctic Peninsula area.

This track gives a musical nod to Latin countries, which have contributed their own culture and knowledge to Antarctic activities and research.

Antarctica Olé

3. Oh Mama Earth

Mother Nature has taken a big hit in recent years. It’s all bad news, whether from the ozone hole, global warming, environmental contamination from mining, industrial toxins, micro plastic pollution, plastic garbage, fires, floods, pestilence, famines, war and species extinction.

Antarctica has been affected by many of these events in various locations and to various extents.In our track, we offer a big brassy R&B sigh as to what we’ve done to ourselves, and to our planet. We hope for the best, but as they say, hope is not a plan.

Oh Mama Earth

4. Loneliest Continent Blues

The blues are a genre of American music, commonly considered to be post-American Civil War adaptations of songs sung by Afro-American slaves as they worked in the fields. Sadness and hard times are predominating themes. Modern blues have developed to convey a wide range of emotions and musical structures. Antarctica has often been called the loneliest continent, due to its bleakness and isolation. While loneliness and depression may appear in some people wintering over at research bases, most people in Antarctica may be too busy to feel much isolation.

Our track takes a wistful, bluesy look at the loneliest continent.

Loneliest Continent Blues

5. Sun Dogs and Halos

Sun Dogs are coloured spots of light that occur when sunlight passes through the atmosphere and is refracted by ice crystals. They appear as patches of light on both sides of the sun when it’s near the horizon. Halos are light rings seen around the sun, which are caused by ice crystals in wispy cirrus clouds. Due to its dryness, the Antarctic atmosphere is particularly conducive to suspended ice crystals with their spectacular effects.

Our track presents a musical interpretation of a shimmering, vibrating atmospheric light show.

Sun Dogs and Halos

6. Calypso Antarctica

There may be irony in adapting a tropical music style to Antarctic themes. The reality of global warming has led to dire warming effects on many areas of Antarctica, particularly in the Antarctic Peninsula and on the western coast. Ice shelves are disintegrating and sea ice cover is diminishing from increases in both surface air and sea water temperatures.

Our track is a facetious way of connecting hot-weather music to a cold continent that is being warmed by climate change.

Calypso Antarctica

7. Choir Winds Trilogy

Antarctic katabatic winds are very strong winds that originate from dense, cold air that flows by gravity down from the high interior polar plateau out to the coastlines and over the huge ice shelves. Where these winds have been funnelled into restricted areas, such as valleys, speeds up to 200 mph have been recorded.

In our three-part track we imagine not a rush of furious katabatic winds, but rather soft winds and instruments harmonizing with a choir. In three styles, we hear, in turn, classically mellow, playfully soulful, and countrified, teary atmospheric dynamics.

Choir Winds Trilogy

8. Water Bears Are Moss Piglets

Microscopic invertebrates called tardigrades, but known as water bears or moss piglets, are a very hardy species found in Antarctica and other extreme environments. They live in water drops in the soil and moss, found beneath ice on land and in the water. Typically hibernating during winter and dry spells, they come to life when summer conditions prevail. They have four pairs of legs with claws and suction discs, two eyes and a mouth.

Our track tries to mirror the motions of these captivating critters in their various environments.

Water Bears Are Moss Piglets

9. Lush Green Snow

Green algae have been blooming en masse in the short spring period on the surface snow along coastal areas of the Antarctic Peninsula. As the region warms, the microbial communities forming the snow algae masses may also be taking in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, acting beneficially as carbon sinks, a process scientists are just starting to study.

Our track paints a picture of the colourful and complex algal ecosystem in Antarctica.

Lush Green Snow

10. Holiday in Antarctica

The modern era of Antarctic tourism began in 1969 with a single ship-based cruise from Ushuaia, Argentina to the Antarctic Peninsula. Recent decades have seen continued tourist growth and more locations visited. Pre-COVID visitors totalled a seasonal high of 74,000 in 2019-20. Following a pandemic pause, estimates for current visitors exceed 100,000. Worries about environmental effects from ships and people continue to mount. Although human activity in Antarctica falls under the Antarctic Treaty, the operational activities of tourism are self-regulated by the tourist operators.

Our track takes a tropical view of Antarctic travel, coloured by a warming global climate, which is of great concern for Antarctica.

Holiday in Antarctica

11. Metronome

In 2023 Antarctic sea ice reached the lowest level ever recorded, although it is the decline of Arctic ice that is currently far more dramatic. With the 2015 Paris Agreement there was international consensus to keep the global warming increase in the lower 1.5º C to 2º C range over the pre-industrial era level. Since then, scientists now believe that even at the 1.5º C level the earth’s temperature would become disastrous and that fires, droughts and heat waves would be the result. The 2023 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that we are nowhere near to remaining below the target level. Current climate promises amounted to an excessive 2.5º C increase by the end of the century. How long does the earth have before irreversible climate change occurs, sending it to another extinction era?

Our track is a commentary that time is clicking relentlessly on global warming. It’s melodically based on one of the most commonly used pop music styles, the doo-wop progression, especially popular in the 1950s.

Metronome

Credits

Musical compositions by

Synthesizer & programming, guitars, arrangements and mixing by Michael Stibor

Additional arrangements by Carole Desmarteau (track 3) and Valmar Kurol

Mastered by Richard Addison, Trillium Mastering (Montreal, Canada) www.trilliumsound.com

Photographs and track notes by Valmar Kurol

Album graphics by Michael Valcenat

Produced by Valmar Kurol