Strange-TUNDRA

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Strange-tundra is a method of music-creation. 

It utilizes samples of ice, wind, choir, the human voice and a variety of other atmospheric and tundric sound recordings. It focuses heavily on wind (the starlet sound of the tundra) and attempts to take all embodiments of it and turn them into instruments. 

By combining the unusual sounds of ice and wind strange-tundra marries these elements together gracefully for a truly unusual and haunting sound. 

It is sometimes called ice music.

Ice makes some really unusual and unexpected sounds. Some of Xxhe's favorite sounds to weave into strange-tundra pieces include the sound of a frozen lake slowly shifting, cracking and freezing, snow impacts, avalanches, blizzard wind, glacial fallings, objects dropped through ice burr holes, ice crystals crinkling, forest bird calls, creek water running, and the very birdlike sound of a stone being skipped on a frozen bed of water.

Though strange-tundra is crafted from found sounds, it is not just found-sound music. Strange-tundra is a massive storytelling device which ties this unique music to complex worldbuilding and more than a couple artforms. 

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Strange-tundra atmospheric uses mainly environmental sound recordings of the tundra and the cold.

Some of the sounds used in this song:

 an ice lake shifting and cracking (opening sound), chunks of ice falling from a glacier, stone skipped on an ice lake, blizzard wind, the bass of an avalanche recording.

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The incipit and initiating art piece of strange-tundra was an orchestral ice opera called Anethemas or Roveses. Xxhe composed it independently at the age of seventeen using GarageBand. The music follows the events of their novel of the same name. The opera's score is unique because down to every distinct sound, there is an action being played out according directly to the novel. It is so precise that timestamps appear in the book.

When completed, the opera held an outstanding length of 7 hours. Xxhe revisited it after three years, selected many key climatic pieces and stylized them into the first half of a live show. It was called the Strange-Tundra Opera.

Set on a plausibly-theoretical alien world, the strange-tundra opera follows a young extraterrestrial girl through bioluminescent forests and jarring dreamscapes as she dances and tunnels with creatures made entirely of light whose language can only be sung and is unpronounceable spoken . The music, all composed in strange-tundra, was interpreted using modern dance, spoken word, high contrast lighting and light reflective costumeage.

Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş played the role of Scaarleas in this live theater poetta-bizarre interpretation of Roveses.

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While exploring the bounds and possibilities of ice music, Xxhe dove into percussion and how it can be decorated by the sounds that ice makes. 

Some of the percussive sounds Xxhe enjoys using in strange-tundra dance pieces are snow impacts, footsteps, and ice crackings. From creating high hats from the high pitched noises of ice colliding with glass to adding an ambience to an upbeat track with the delicate sound of feathery snow falling, the possibilities are truly endless. 

"Astatine" is one of Xxhe's most popular ice dance tracks.

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