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To Svalbard.

  • ‘To Svalbard’ is a solo EP exploring a possible future, in which our planet has been gripped by a new ice age, brought on by the results of climate change. A brave team of determined explorers have taken it upon themselves to scrape together the small amount of resources at their disposal, including a battered old snow-crawler vehicle known amongst the crew as ‘The Beast,’ to carry out a long and arduous expedition.

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  • Their aim is to travel north to find a place once known as the Svalbard Seed Vault, a science facility that once was a leading botany research laboratory containing copies of all known species of flora. The location was long ago abandoned due to its remote location and increasingly uninhabitable environment - finding it will be an arduous and formidable task.

  • All artwork by Toby Carroll @bytobyc 

  • The sealed facility holds the frozen remnants of Earth’s biological past, and if they are able to locate it, there is a chance they may be able to bring back the samples and knowledge from generations ago in order to restart the planet’s failing agricultural system. If they are successful, it would turn a page to a new and more hopeful chapter in humanity’s history.

  • The EP is sonically based around different elements of my Viola, featuring what could be considered more ‘standard’ performances, to more abstract textural and granulated sections. Also included are my efforts to create an interesting sonic identity that permeates the various tracks to hopefully group them together stylistically, such as the heavy basses, scratchy tremolos and sense of space.

  • As a whole, it explores the relationship between the ‘delicate’ sound of the string instrument interacting with the larger, more powerful electronic elements that I feel could represent the crew’s existence and fight for survival in the harsh conditions they find themselves in.

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  • ‘Tundra’ places the listener in the crew’s setting. Vast, cold and uncaring landscape stretches as far as the eye can see. Occasionally it’s magnitude is lost on the crew, hidden from their gaze by blizzards and darkness, but it’s might and sheer size is always there to greet them once the weather subsides/dawn breaks.

  • ‘The Beast’ is a direct study of the crew’s vehicle. It is their transport, their shelter, their chance at making it to their destination. An old, analogue piece of technology, any malfunction or stoppage could prove disastrous for the explorers.

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  • ‘Henry’ is the captain of the expedition. The idea of finding the Vault had been occupying his mind for as long as he could remember, but only now is he coming to terms with the very real human toll it may take to reach where he has been dreaming of reaching for so long.

  • 'Storm’ – a stark example of the power of the north. Climate change has amplified weather events to apocalyptic scales, the likes of which the crew could not even conceive, let alone have prepared for.

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  • 'The Vault’ – A place that has existed only in the crew’s collective mind’s eye for months, draws nearer with each day of progress. Will they reach the halfway mark of their journey?

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  • All artwork by Toby Carroll @bytobyc 

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