Historical Polar Expeditions Memorialized In Music By Kerani

[Lillian]

HISTORICAL POLAR EXPEDITIONS MEMORIALIZED IN MUSIC BY KERANI

In 1894 the Bureau of American Ethnology published a report on their studies of the Eskimo natives living in the Arctic and their legends about the Aurora Borealis lights. On the other end of the earth in 1911 a British expedition was racing against a Norwegian team to be the first to find the South Pole, but when the Brits arrived, they found they had been preceded by the Norway explorers by a month, and then the British tragically perished on their way back to the coast. From 1921 to 1924 during the Fifth Thule Expedition to the polar regions, Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen kept a journal that sometimes reads like prose. A few years ago the NWO (Dutch Institute for Scientific Research) made a documentary called “Antarctic Inspection” and musician Kerani (from Belgium, now living in The Netherlands) created the musical soundtrack.

All of this polar information was researched by Kerani and inspired her new album, called Arctic Sunrise. Mesmerized by the beauty and grandeur of the North and South Poles (which she calls “The Last Wilderness”), keyboardist Kerani has made a lovely mostly-instrumental album that captures the “Ice Kingdom” (the title of the second piece featuring piano offset with violin and cello). Kerani mostly plays synthesizers interspersed with some piano and backed by guest musicians on assorted acoustic instruments (including guitar, flute and horns). Also scattered throughout are the occasional mellow drums, percussion, a gong, harbor bells, snare marching drums, tympani, perhaps a French horn, a synth string section, mixed-back (sometimes whispered) vocals, and even some seagulls.

The Inuit Indian legends inspired the Northern Lights piece (“Aurora Sky”). “Discovery” is a tribute to all the many polar expeditions. “Norway” was influenced by that country and the legendary Vikings. But the centerpiece (and masterpiece) of this collection is the ten-and-a-half-minute new age opus “Far Away From Home” dedicated to that ill-fated Antarctica trip by the British explorers in the early 1900s. This multi-section composition builds in complexity and power, and is a fitting honor for those brave scientists searching for a mystical spot on the ice where no other human ever trod and signifying the exact bottom of our round stone hurling through space.

Kerani’s music is definitely within the new age music galaxy (a genre still wide-open to many sounds, styles and experimentations) with moments of orchestral beauty and others hinting at space music or performed with heart-tugging simplicity. Highly recommended. Find Kerani and her music online (including her website) using a search engine. It’s worth it.

 

[John Watt]

Lillian! I'm not just being contradictory, finding this interesting, but I'm a Canadian musician,
and an Inuit elder took me out on arctic ice, north of Goose Bay, Labrador.
The trumpeter swans have wingspans over eight feet, no seagulls in sight.
Eskimo is a word from a Hollywood movie, and isn't what natives call themselves. They have names and tribes.

The European explorers who managed to get back out alive, were saved by Inuit.
The European explorers who ignored the natives all died.
Shackleton and his crew had an amazing survival, but that's towards the south pole, the only one like that.
While it's true that nature is still pure up there, and you know it when you're in it,
it's not that nice being Inuit. If you are eating other animals, pre-digested food, without fruits and vegetables,
you have to eat every part to get the same nutrients for your body parts.
An eye for an eye takes on a whole new meaning up there.

The bottom of the earth, such a misguided term, would be where gravity says it is.
And Inuit don't have legends. They have an oral history going back to the glacial age.

Arctic Sunrise sounds nice, but it's dark for months or half a year, and light the rest of the time.
If there is a sunrise, it's not what you and I are used to, just a few darkening hours.

And to be suggestive myself, being positive, I think Bi-polar would be a more modern title to inflame listener attention.
You can claim the same inspiration, the north and south pole both being the same frigid hinterlands.


A little antarctic trivia: The emperor penguin has been reduced to just one large mating colony.
They like to come onto the ice and travel over it to find where the ice is the thickest,
before they settle down as a colony, taking turns caring for the egg and hunting.
Even though the ice might be almost a mile thick, with variations during seasons,
the penguins always settle down where scientists find that the ice is the thickest,
even by a few feet.
Considering that scientists can't discover how they do that, who is the scientist here?
The creature that not only survives but thrives, or the artificial technology that keeps humans alive?

As a Canadian, there is a sorrow with any thought of the arctic.
The Beotuk, the native Newfoundland tribe, and the four to five foot tall penguins they co-existed with,
are the first human species to be killed off, with their penguin friends.
I'm waiting for an Inuit to be the first human to discover England and claim it for the Arctic.
He'll probably have relatives in Ireland and Scotland.