LAU NAU: MORPHING SEA ICE IN KIILA, FINLAND
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LAU NAU:
MORPHING SEA ICE IN KIILA, FINLAND
This audio essay gathers some sea ice recordings I’ve made during the past 5 years from 2019 to 2024. They all have been recorded in the same location at the beach of the village of Kiila, on Kimito island, Western Finland. The essay is a chronological collage about the transformations that the sea ice goes through in the early spring months, slowly morphing from solid ice to layered, expanding, cracking, disintegrating forms.
I am standing in the yard and my senses sharpen, all of the sudden. It is the time when the sea ice starts to speak, I can hear it from a 1000 meters distance, the low bass frequencies are pressure waves in the air that reach my ears, all the way through the forest. The ice is expanding in the warmth, anticipating the spring. The sea ice doesn’t fit into its position as the lid of the sea anymore. It pushes itself towards the shores, making cracks in itself, relieving the tension.
Cross country skiing on the ice February 2021
The sea ice in the new years eve 2021-2022
I live near the sea, on an island, in a village. I have been recording the sea ice here winter after winter. It is always a remarkable moment when the movement of the water surface starts to slow down, the movement of the molecules stops, almost. The surface of the water is still, it’s frozen. It becomes the lid of the sea. Nevertheless, the life under the surface keeps moving. Crustaceans, fish, chlorophyll, still there, alive.
Recording March 2019
Recording the wind and the last thin ice rafts February 2020
My friend Pauliina stands on the lid of the sea March 2019
The sea ice melted away in January and the cold sea water is freezing again during the cold days in February 2020
It’s not time to say goodbye to the ice yet, the below zero degrees of March are here. The ice is not solid though, it has now different layers and the uppermost, thin layer, that hangs suspended on air some centimetres over the thicker ice, is talking, crackling.
I detach some of the thin ice layers and throw them on the sea lid.
The spring storm is here. Some spots of the sea are free now, like bald spots in the fur of a mammal. The wind is pushing the melting ice, detaching the layers, forcing the bonds to break.
The ice rafts are floating. The water is flowing, making movement. Can you sense how vibrant the molecules are now?
The ice is disintegrating into smaller and smaller particles. The slush is copying the movement of the waves, floating on top of the water. The surroundings are full of movement, water, we are all connected in a flowing form again.
Lau Nau, aka Laura Naukkarinen, is a Finnish composer whose music is imbued with an idiosyncratic, finely honed sound world. Her palette consists of acoustic instruments, singing voice, modular synthesisers, reel-to-reel tape recorders and field recordings.
To date Lau Nau has released ten albums on record labels in Europe, USA and Japan and a large number of collaborative releases. She is also known for her music to films and multi channel sound installations.