The Babelbox podcast Episode 5 is out now - an Arctic special. In this episode we follow Shlomo on an expedition to North Greenland with Cape Farewell. Hear an exclusive new song from Martha Wainwright, music from Feist, Jarvis Cocker and interviews with Marcus Brigstocke, Vanessa Carlton and Laurie Anderson.
Whilst I was out in the Arctic I was really concerned about the amount of energy we were munching up just by being there. I brought this up at one of the discussions, and one interesting response was from Marcus Brigstocke.
He pointed out that you can waste hours worrying about whether you’ve left the TV on standby, but one thing that can really affect the planet is what you do with your money.
If you put your money in a bank who don’t tell you what their ethical policies are, you have no way of knowing what kind of companies they are investing in. You could be funding weapons deals, oppressive governments and doing all kinds of damage to the planet.
It had never occured to me.
a selection of Greenlandic staple dishes
dried whale-meat. tasted chewy and meaty, slightly fishy. was ok but kept ‘repeating’ on me.
Not sure what these little dried fish were called. I am a big fish fan but these were so chewy!
Graham (founder of treehugger) tries his best to look enthusiastic
raw seal. tastes of blood. and fish. the blubber is cold and flobby. i quite liked this but it was too much for most.
dried haddock - i ate loads of this!
raw seal liver. yum.
Most of our group found the Greenlandic food overwhelming… the local kids thought we were hilarious for making such a fuss - they’d walk past and grab a handful of whale to shove in their mouth.
They also served us melted iceberg… the purest water i’ve had - frozen for over 10,000 years.
The view from our cabin on my first morning in Greenland
Me in front of the glacier. (Look closely to get an idea of how massive the glacier is - check out how tiny the people are as they get nearer)
‘BERG!
View from our dinghy on the way to the gig
Performing with KT Tunstall, Robyn Hitchcock and Jarvis
Old-skool sunglasses in local museum
after a while you get used to the wonkiness of living on a boat
Over the final couple of days on board the Cape Farewell trip to the Arctic, everybody on the boat seemed to be extra excited. We only had a little bit of time left together, and suddenly it felt like we all wanted to get as much done creatively as possible.
I’d been chatting with Leslie Feist about messing around with choirs and weird recording spaces (we tried to make a recording in the emergency lifeboat but it was snowed in!). Jarvis had brought a collection of lo-fi equipment, including a tiny battery operated amplifier the size of a pack of cards, a JVC mic that felt like a toy, a miniature battery powered electric guitar, and his piece de resistance, a toy turntable that played real records. (He also used the turntable in one of his many disko dj sets. One of the highlights of the trip was with Marcus Brigstocke and Jarvis, DJing from our iPods for the dancing voyagers until 4am most nights).
Shlo and Jarvis
Anyway, I was in the bar listening to an impromptu piano performance from Ryuichi Sakomoto (amazing guy, he’s an Oscar winning composer but was still happy to put his hat on backwards, don some shades, and take part in the beatbox battle on the last night!). Suddenly I was grabbed by Leslie and Jarvis, and taken up a cabin upstairs where they had set up all the lofi gear. The following jam ensued. We decided to name our newly formed super-group the Arctic Lofi.
Ryuichi Sakamoto and Jarvis Cocker. Photo: Nathan Gallagher
More images of crew members and their activities
Cabin chaos (representing the general state of the boat). Matt Wainwright edits video for the website hours before we leave the Grigory Mikheev in Kangerlussauq. Photo: Nathan Gallagher
Shlomo prepares for the world’s first Arctic beatbox battle. Photo: Nathan Gallagher
Ryuichi Sakamoto with Sam Collins. Photo: Nathan Gallagher
KT Tunstall’s guitar signed by all the gang. Photo: Nathan Gallagher
Some audio of Vanessa Carlton, KT Tunstall, Robyn Hitchcock and myself jamming in the ship’s bar before playing at the local hotel bar in Ummannak later that evening.
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.
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