Yoichi Kamimura - ryūhyō

A Closer Listen

Yoichi Kamimura must have had a sinking feeling when local elders informed him that despite all his hard work and years of field recording, he had failed to capture the true sound of Ryūhyō-Nari (drift ice noises).  Undeterred, the artist continued to record and preserve the sounds of the Sea of Okhotsk, year after year, producing a snapshot of what Ryūhyō-Nari sounds like today.  These may not be the same sounds that prior generations experienced, but perhaps new sounds, themselves endangered, which forty years from now may be recalled with a similar blend of nostalgia and sorrow. ryūhyō is the third installment of forms of minutiae’s ice series, which is part of UNESCO & WMO’s Art for Glaciers Preservation; by year’s end, we will hear two more.

There are many types of drifting ice, because ice doesn’t just drift.  It flows, pops, yawns, collides, reforms, releases pockets of air.  Today one form is referred to as sherbet ice; but historically the ice was thick enough for people to walk upon.  The thinning, rapidly melting ice now endangers local habitats, as the rare combination of fresh and sea water, which nourishes as it melts, has grown ever more scarce.  In some circles, climate change is still called a theory.

The recordings are made above and below the sea ice; the ice’s animal noises mingle with those of living creatures.  Without the benefit of liner notes, might one be able to tell the difference between a Blakiston’s fish owl, a ribbon seal and the cries that emerge from the ice?  Might it be said that the ice is itself a living, breathing organism, a subspecies of Gaia?

Much of the recording is carried out in the middle of the night, when all else is quiet and even the shyest crackles can be heard.  Kamimura immediately plunges the listener into a curious chorus of snoring ice, as if asleep, circling seabirds and a frozen cricket sound; even though one knows there are no crickets around.  The captured sounds are incredibly pristine, the documentation sublime. No wonder the elders were enchanted, the implication being that the old sounds – like old songs – were somehow not only different, but better.  Without a source of comparison, we cannot weigh in on the topic.  We can, however, attest the allure of these recent recordings, reflecting a world many may never know.

“shima-fukurou” begins with the sound of flow, but travels into an area of crackle and collision. Above it all, the aforementioned owl hoots impassively like a quiet foghorn.  Has the owl noticed that there is less to hunt, that the melt is accelerating, that the boundary lines have moved?  The accumulation of sound begins to beguile, like an exercise in musique concrète, sans editing, the world producing sonic wonders without a studio.  In “mayonaka,” the cracking ice sounds like a creaking tree.  In “kyūai,” pinnipeds emit descending glissandos, the title meaning “courtship.” “minehama” suggests jackhammers, bicycle wheels, a city in a windstorm.

Looking out over the landscape, Kamimura sees more than blue and white.  Delving within, he hears more than rivers and seas.  He discovers a sci-fi soundscape that turns out to be real, like evidence of a benign alien civilization hidden beneath the ice.  If “onaka no oto” reflects its title (“stomach rumble”), might a gregarious creature be waiting below, starved for fish that no longer swim in this area?  If we learned of such a thing, would we feed it?  If the ice were dying, and we had the resources to save it, would we?  In this Year of Glacial Preservation, facing the ripple effect of dying ecosystems, might we begin to send ripples in the opposite direction?  (Richard Allen)