The musicians performed near the Nicolaus Copernicus University Polar Station on Spitsbergen, surrounded by the sounds of cracking ice and meltwater flowing from nearby glaciers.
Led by singer and guitarist Tomasz Organek, the band also recorded material for a video for its new song "Coraz mniej" (Less and Less) on a small island that was until recently covered by ice.
"The speed at which the glaciers are melting is staggering," Organek said. "We saw it with our own eyes. We played on an island that did not exist until recently."
He added: "When we play concerts, we get a response from the audience, but here, despite appearances, it wasn’t silent. The sound of cracking ice and streams rushing from the melting ice makes an enormous impression. It was shocking."
The expedition is part of Science. Music. The Arctic, a project combining a documentary about the work of researchers from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, north-central Poland, with music recorded in the Arctic.
The university has operated its polar station on the Kaffiøyra coastal plain in northwestern Spitsbergen since 1975. Scientists there study glaciers, snow cover, permafrost, meltwater and weather conditions.
Decades of observations allow researchers to compare current conditions with measurements made by earlier expeditions.
Ireneusz Sobota, head of the university's polar station, said the surface area of the glaciers studied by the team had fallen by more than 50 percent from their maximum extent.
"Every successive year is record-breaking in terms of ice melt and average temperature," Sobota said. "Every change here can later be felt in other parts of the world."
The band’s performance and the scientists’ work will feature in a documentary now being produced about changes in the Arctic environment.
Organek said the new song was intended to accompany the film rather than serve as a conventional single.
"It is a very intimate song about growing apart, about disappearing," he said.
Organek said the musicians hoped the project would encourage more people to take an interest in climate change.
"I don’t have the feeling that we are going to change the world," he said. "But as much as we can talk about it, we are trying to help. That was the purpose of our stay."
The band, composed of Organek with Adam Staszewski, Robert Markiewicz and Tomasz Lewandowski, has been active since 2013. In 2021, the Warsaw Rising Museum invited Ørganek to create an album marking the 77th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi German occupation.
The documentary and other material recorded during the expedition are due to be released in the coming months.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP, portal.umk.pl