A Closer Listen
It may quack like a duck, but it is not a duck; it is a glacier. The astounding “a kind of a person” is just one example of how strange and alluring the sounds of glaciers can be. Once the hydrophones are dipped into water, one may hear babbling babies, abstract synthesizers and all manner of sonic wonders.
Crying Glacier is Ludwig Berger‘s tribute to the vanishing geophony of the Vadret da Morteratsch (Morteratsch Glacier). The sound artist previously established his dedication to the subject through the Institute of Landscape and Urban Studies’ Bodies of Water trilogy (2018-22), one of our all-time favorite field recording projects. The new work serves as a companion piece to a documentary film directed by Lutz Stautner, seen below; it is also the second in a series of ice-related releases from Pablo Diserens’ forms of minutiae, coinciding with the United Nations’ Year of Glacier Preservation.
Returning time and time again to the Morteratsch Glacier, Berger has begun to view it as a friend. The personification aids in the intimacy of the recordings. As a friend, the artist has also grown increasingly concerned as the glacier has continued to withdraw, shrinking in size and leaving behind a desert-like terrain. In the brief time between recording and release, the situation has continued to accelerate, while international governments, the United States in particular, have sought to curb environmental regulations. The situation could not be more immediate or dire.
And so, the glacier is crying, or technically melting. This is not simply a byproduct of spring. Timelapse photos demonstrate the retreat. Berger attempts to hold new conversations with his friend, knowing that the days may be numbered. And what conversations the two have! Over a backdrop of rustle and drone, one hears dripping, chortling, clicking, murmuring, squeaking, a panoply of voices arranged by Berger into a suite. Bubbles race to the surface, releasing centuries-old air. In the film, Berger splashes water on his face that might last have touched a dinosaur. The cracking of ice, reminiscent of the cleaving of glaciers, is akin to a miniature disaster. One hears Berger walking across the ice, crampons intact, and sees him above a cascading blue stream.
Is this the last time we will hear these sounds? We are grateful for the video, which rescues them from abstraction. Otherwise we might believe that “a form of a language” is the soundtrack to an intergalactic laser battle, the combatants occasionally taking breaks for soda pop. “The more alive he seems, the more he is dying,” laments Berger; were the glacier not melting, we would still hear sounds, but not these sounds, and nowhere near as active or loud. Before hearing this piece, one would never imagine that a glacier could sound like a bicycle wheel. And then of course there is that duck (9:00 in the film), quacking its protest at the warming climate.
The saddest part of the album is the finale, in which Berger imagines the soundscape without the glacier. The biophany remains lush, but an ecosystem – in this case a friend – has been lost. The director warns that these recordings may outlast the glaciers themselves. In a bittersweet closing shot, Berger returns to his home, places this very record on a turntable, and plays back their last conversation. The glacier is crying; now we are as well. (Richard Allen)
Tue May 20 00:01:43 GMT 2025