300 g, 32 x 32 cm
Released: 25 February 2022

Tracklist 

Side A: Murmansk Soundscape
Side B: Sounds of Migration

Settlers, by sound artist and researcher Sergey Kostyrko, explores the social landscape of Murmansk – the largest settlement above the Arctic Circle. Side A, ‘Murmansk Soundscape’, provides an uninterrupted window onto the city at work, a field recording cherry-picked from extensive research trips around the area. Meanwhile, ‘Sounds of Migration’ on Side B presents a curiously dynamic noise composition – curious because it’s an automated sonification: one unedited take of a data model communicating with a modular synthesiser. 

The data narrates a city and a region in flux, and in decline: the Murmansk population has dropped from almost half a million in 1989 to 300,000 in 2020, with a resulting deterioration of conditions for those left behind. These data flows are turned into sound by a custom interface interacting with the model and a modular synthesiser, all in real-time: a deft noise composition and visceral expression of the city’s sparking complexity. Side A, Murmansk Soundscape, completes a complex portrait of the region, by immersing the listener there. The distinctive sonic landscape is marked by the sounds of trains, ships, harbour cranes and howling wind: a soundscape capturing the beating infrastructural heart of a city still buzzing with insistent activity, even as it slowly drains away.

Settlers was developed as part of Murmansk Prospekt and commissioned by Sonic Acts and Fridaymilk.