Music and the Polar Regions
In recent decades, increasing numbers of professional composers, musicians and sound artists from diverse national and cultural backgrounds have turned their attention towards the polar regions to gain inspiration for new creative works. This trend can be attributed to several factors, including the celebration of centenaries of Heroic-Era expeditions, the rise in media reporting about environmental changes in the polar regions and the implications for global climate processes, the increased dialogue about these places within literature and the arts, and the greater opportunities for artists to physically visit them through tourist cruises/flights and arts residency programs.1 While some composers, musicians and sound artists have focused their attention on one of the polar icescapes, rather than both, collectively their work reflects on the uniqueness and importance of the polar regions, the history of human presence within them, and the influences of these places on the spaces in between.
Musical and sound-based works composed in connection with the Arctic and/or Antarctic exist in a range of styles and genres, from pieces in the Western art music (or “classical”) tradition—such as Ralph Vaughan Williams’s film score for Scott of the Antarctic (1948) and Sinfonia Antartica (1949–52), Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s High on the Slopes of Terror (1999) and Antarctic Symphony (Symphony No. 8, 2000), Nigel Westlake’s Antarctica suite (1992), Vincent Ho’s Arctic Symphony (2010) and Ludovico Einaudi’s Elegy for the Arctic (2016)—to the soundscape-based compositions of John Luther Adams, Cheryl Leonard, Andrea Polli, Douglas Quin, Philip Samartzis, Ian Tamblyn and Craig Vear, among others. While several scholarly studies have been published on art music composed in connection with the polar regions (Beckerman 2000; Grimley 2008; Hince et al. 2015; Leane et al. 2014; Philpott 2016; Philpott and Samartzis 2017; Wiesel 2012), these have rarely encompassed forms of popular music, despite a large number of examples. This might reflect the general tendency among musicologists to privilege the study of music from the Western art tradition (works that have stood the test of time and for which there are tangible scores to analyse) over forms of popular music, which by their very nature typically have shorter histories, rely on aural transmission and often appear less complex when notated. The apparent simplicity of some forms of popular music when notated can be deceptive, however, as music in this genre often requires a different set of analytical techniques (such as sound recording analysis) to adequately investigate the key musical characteristics that vary (at least in the degree of emphasis placed on them) from those of Western art music, such as vocal timbres and nuances, and subtleties in rhythm and beat placement.2
The lack of scholarly attention given to polar-related popular music so far certainly does not seem to be representative of the quantity and quality of this repertoire, nor of its potential impact. Examples of polar-related popular music vary from songs with fleeting references to the Arctic and/or Antarctic in lyrics (such as in rock band Australian Crawl’s 1983 hit “Reckless [Don’t be so]”), to entire tracks about polar icescapes (for example, Midnight Oil’s “Antarctica” from the album Blue Sky Mining, 1990). There have also been noteworthy performances by popular music artists in these locations (such as Metallica’s 2013 concert at Argentina’s Carlini Base on King George Island, near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula). Significantly, polar-related popular music has the capacity to reach large audiences. While aesthetic considerations remain important, many examples of polar-related popular music are designed, like much other popular music, to “mediat[e] community concerns” through lyrical content and provide “new perspectives to initiate creative dialogue,” rather than only “simple messaging” (Pedelty 2016, p. 209). Although contrasting perspectives exist on the capacity for the arts to initiate changes in behaviour (see e.g. Heddon and Mackey 2012), scholars working in the relatively new field of ecomusicology have recognised that listening to environment-centred music, as well as “incorporating considerations of music and sound into sustainability,” can indeed “engage community and help effect cultural change” (Allen et al. 2014, pp. 10, 23).3 The potential for music to connect people with places and important environmental matters is particularly relevant in relation to the polar regions, given their centrality to global climate processes and to ongoing debates about climate change.
This chapter focuses on the work of an artist at the forefront of creating polar-related popular music: the internationally renowned American composer, writer and experimental hip-hop musician Paul D. Miller (also known as “DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid”). Having visited both Antarctica (2007–2008) and the Arctic (2010 and 2014), Miller combines his field recordings of ice with newly composed music and electronic sounds based on patterns derived from scientific data to create a range of projects and performances aimed at engaging audiences with these places and the environmental issues affecting them. Through his various works and performances that explore ice—its distinctive properties and the many different forms it takes—he invites listeners into an open dialogue about the unique ecosystems of the polar regions and the impacts of climate change. Although his performances have occasionally received mixed reviews from critics, Miller has been formally and publicly recognised for “inspiring people to care about the planet” (Daugherty 2014). In 2014, for example, he was named as one of National Geographic’s “Emerging Explorers,” as part of a programme which recognises and supports gifted visionaries and innovators who are “making a difference and changing the world” (National Geographic 2014b; National Geographic 2017). His work, however, has yet to receive much in the way of critical scholarly consideration.
Drawing on musicological approaches, including score and sound-recording analyses, this chapter presents the first scholarly examination of Miller’s polar-inspired music and performances. It focuses primarily on the work Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica (2008), and also incorporates discussions of his book and installation The Book of Ice (2011), his album Of Water and Ice (2013) and Arctic Rhythms concert series (2014 onwards). These projects are considered within the context of his experiences in the polar regions and his interests in the science of climate change and the structure of ice. By exploring his ice-related outputs, the study shows the methods through which he aims to engage audiences around the world with important environmental issues relating to the polar regions. Overall, this research seeks to facilitate greater understanding of Miller’s ice-related and broader environment-focused wor...