Soojin Anjou, Askat Jetigen and Robert L — Gletschermusik

The sound of Central Asia’s melting glaciers is the jumping off point for “glaciermusic” a project propagated by the Goethe – Institutes in Almaty and Tashkent to raise awareness of the impending environmental catastrophe through the visionary work of artists and musicians. The compositions on this album are inspired by the ongoing environmental crisis of the Tujuksu glacier near to the Kazakh city of Almaty. This project came to pass after an expedition to the region made a number of sound recordings of the melting ice, highly sensitive microphones were placed in crevices of the glacier and recordings were made.

The musicians involved in the recording of this album include the South Korean concert pianist Soojin Anjou, a traditional musician from the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, Askat Jetigen and Berlin artist, musician and stage designer Robert Lippok. The project’s Artistic Director is the Berlin based video and media artist Lillevan.

The album begins with a droplet, then another, and another, eventually Asian inspired music enters the fray, light and gentle with not a hint of the impending doom that the album is here to warn us against. The sound of bubbling and flowing water plays around the central musical section as if to remind us that the music is of secondary importance.  The sound design of the album utilizes field recordings to great effect and mixing those ambient field recordings and the musical performances with a great deal of success. The track "Boz Salkyn" is one of the standouts for me, using mainly pipes and field recordings to create a beautiful, thoughtful piece of Avant Garde ambience. Some tracks like Geologdun Yry have a distinctly folky feel to them, eschewing the ambience backing of other tracks for acoustic guitar and vocals. "Towards the Glaciers" is the longest track on the album and feels like the album’s centrepiece. The whole build up is constructed around what sounds like a Jew’s harp, the track begins to slowly build over time before it eventually falls away again to be replaced by the sound of running water and acoustic guitar. This track is like a microcosm of the album in full, using each of the various elements at play across its 11 minutes.

Ultimately what this album is all about is the very real dangers to our world from climate change. The final track "Gletscherdialog" is probably therefore the most poignant, the sound of running water replaced by the sound of ice melting and breaking. A stark warning to the listener of the impending doom we face from the environmental catastrophe brewing in the Tujuksu mountain range. Gletschermusik is many things, a beautiful album of delicate music and an environmental warning cry among them, but overall it is a small part of a much larger project that has far reaching implications for the future of our world heading into the future, and for that the musicians must be applauded. To paraphrase one reviewer, the album deals with an incredibly heavy concept with the lightest of touches. A very enjoyable listening experience but also one that makes you think and will hopefully add to the many voices across the world calling out for change.