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A recent performance at London's Royal Festival
Hall featured a set including ice horns, ice drums and an 'iceofone'
- an ice xylophone - accompanied by the vocal stylings of singer
Maria Skranes.
He sees his work as being about more than making music, since he
also aims to display the beauty and fragility of ice.
"I see it as a part of something bigger. It's not me and my
project and my ego - it's the elements," he told Reuters.
The Norwegian, equipped with a background in traditional
Scandinavian music and jazz, makes his instruments using
chainsaws and pick axes.
Founder of an ice music festival in Norway, Isungset plays at
about 50 festivals and concerts a year, many in the cold
conditions of Norway, Canada or Russia.
At concerts in warmer climes, however, hotter temperatures can
pose difficulties, as spending any more than 50 minutes at room
temperature could damage the instruments.
All of the instruments for the London show were made in Norway
and shipped over in special containers, highlighting the fact
that, when it comes to making ice instruments, not any old water
will do.
"If ice is from polluted water it doesn't sound that good. If
it's from tap water it doesn't work because there's some
chemicals in it," he said. The best ice, he said, was from 2003
in the north of Sweden, adding "I'm very interested in that
ice."
(Reporting by Rosanna Phillpot, Writing by Mark Hanrahan,
Editing by William Maclean)
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