Suontee, 23112021 by Olli Aarni

I recorded these sounds on the 23rd of November, 2021. The lake Suontee was starting to freeze over, and there were a few meters of ice by the shoreline. Most of the surface was still liquid.

The lake was serving water two ways.

It was a windy day, and the temperature was close to 0 °C. The waves were slowly crushing the ice by the shoreline, and the warmer humid air was causing the ice to further melt. In the morning the frozen areas were solid and smooth, and by the evening they were mostly liquid and full of shattered ice. During the night the shoreline froze again.

Sometimes the landscape is unwelcoming and the wind is trying to push you back indoors.

(There's one sound I can't recognise on these recordings: the kind of metallic, dissonant sound with a descending pitch, which repeats every now and then. It came from the other side of the lake, but without any visual cues I haven't been able to figure out what it is. There are also sounds of traffic and transportation here and there, but that's just how the world is at the moment.)

The day was grey through and through. Entropy at work. The air looked grainy.

I kept the recording equipment by the shore the whole day. I recorded the lake using two omnidirectional microphones and two hydrophones. I changed the positions of the microphones every now and then to best capture the current weather conditions. I made these recordings during a 12-hour time span. This piece is just the sound of the lake divided into 9 parts, with no overdubs or other intentional compositional methods used, except for fading the sounds in and out between the tracks. The order of the recordings is linear.

It's ok if it feels a bit boring, it's just water splashing, ice melting, and wind rumbling for 100+ minutes. I had seitan with fried potatoes while recording.

I like how the wind sounds when it hits the microphone. I've understood it's often an unwanted sound, but to me this documentation of the lake freezing over would be incomplete without its low percussive rumble.

In the wake of winter, the lake is a portal that is closing.

I feel like listening to these sounds with headphones while commuting etc is a really cyborg thing to do.

olliaarni.com