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Vanessa Carlton performs Heroes and Thieves, backed by Shlomo, on the bridge of the Grigory Mikheev as we return south to Kangerlussuaq. An MPEG 4 version of this clip is also available to download.

Shlomo dedicates his beats to the cause at Hotel Uummannaq. Video: Matt Wainwright.

Click here to view the embedded video.

An MPEG 4 version of this clip is also available to download.

Oh my gosh I am in the Arctic. It’s my third day here and I am still a little overwhelmed. And cold. We just went out in a motorised dinghy and I saw my first ever glacier. As we approached this giant wall of ice, there was a sudden explosion, a loud crashing sound, followed by a mini avalanche and a minor tsunami as a large section of ice cracked off the glacier.

This is dramatic stuff, but I couldn’t help but notice that it’s really quite cold. I don’t think my feet have ever been so cold. I’m thinking maybe we should do something about it and warm this place up a bit. Maybe we if we just all made the effort to let out a bit of extra CO2 gas into the atmosphere, it might just have some kind of warming effect and we could increase the world’s temperature a little. I mean come on, these polar bears must be freezing. We could call it ‘international warming or ‘global heating’ or something along those lines. Anybody with me?

Anyway, yesterday was one of the highest ranking days of my life in terms of sheer awesomeness. Ludvig, our Inuit guide, took us through a snowstorm to Uumannaq, his hometown. For me, just a little bit of snow is a pretty exciting concept. As a child, the idea of there being even just a trace of untouched snow (i.e. that has not already been thrown at someone) was pretty rare. So the excitement of seeing pure white snow as far as the eye can see, completely untouched and about half a metre deep was a little overwhelming. I felt my mental age suddenly plummeting. Suddenly I was six years old again. The mass snowball fight was inevitable, but the local Inuit kids were clearly way more experienced and gave us quite an embarrassing pummelling.

In the evening we put on a special birthday gig for one of the kids from the local orphanage. The line-up was quite something. Imagine KT Tunstall singing lead, with Jarvis Cocker doing rhythm guitar, a backing vocal trio of Martha Wainwright, Leslie Feist and Vanessa Carlton, and of course myself as the walking rhythm section.

After the gig I tought a few beatbox sounds to an excited Laurie Anderson. I am now training her up for the Big Beatbox Battle Showdown between herself and Marcus Brigstocke, who does an impressive impersonation of Donald Duck (if he’d just accidentally swallowed a drum machine).

Later on today we are hoping to step out onto a glacier. I actually cannot wait. But I think I might wear a fourth pair of socks.

Eating pate sandwiches in copenhagen. Flying to greenland first thing tomo!!
9:39pm Monday 29 September

finally off to arctic (via copenhagen)…let’s do this
10:09am Monday 29 September

- as his blog diary states.

hey.. what an insane week. Just got back from Wembley Arena where the Onevoice project reached its conclusion. I’m going to miss everyone!

Yesterday morning we arrived back from Moscow and played our first gig with the new Vocal Orchestra at a tiny festival by the seaside in Essex. Tomorrow morning I leave for the arctic. bring it on!

Hello. my name is Shlomo. I am a beatboxer who loves music, people and peppermint tea. Right now I am pretty excited to be going on an arctic adventure.

But I am not going yet. Right now I’m on the way back to London from Moscow. I am one of the 3 late comers who will be joining the rest of the crew a few days in. When I was first invited on the trip, I was screwing: it clashed with an incredibly important gig (the culmination of a 6-month long commission at Wembley Arena). So I thought I would have to miss out. But the guys from Cape Farewell would not be defeated. Myself and Jude Kelly will be flying out, via Copenhagen, to meet the rest of the crew at the port of Ilulissat on Tuesday.

I’m really excited about the trip - I’ve got myself some amazing mittens that feel like you are putting your hand into a warm room. I’ve also skipped my usual monthly head shaving. Surely I will need all the warmth I can get.

So Moscow to Wembley to Copenhagen to Greenland - I know that is a lot of miles in a plane. This is something that has been bothering me since I heard about the trip. We are going to be munching our way through a fair amount of resources on this mission. At the moment I don’t have an answer to this particular problem. I
have no idea what the voyage will be like, so I’m here with no preconceptions, just to see what happens, and see what we can make happen.