Under the Ice
Listening to a frozen lake in real time — a hydrophone on the lake bed under the winter ice, streaming continuously and archiving everything in 32-bit for later analysis and composition.
This project is an ongoing deep listening experiment with a frozen lake as a living instrument. A hydrophone was delployed 60 feet out into the lake and cabled back to the shore where it is connected to a streaming node and archival recording system all powered by a solar panel and a battery pack.
The aim is to capture ultra-dynamic sounds — from near-silent micro-groans to explosive fractures in the ice sheet — and broadcast them live while preserving a high-quality archive for both research and musical use.
Live under-ice stream
Ice Hydrophone – Live Stream
Happening Now: thin ice cracking and popping as it melts after a warm day
Curated Highlights
Short, curated excerpts capturing thermal shifts, strange resonances, and subtle textures from the continuous stream.
Shattering thin ice
4.0 min
Sudden violent thin ice section shattering on a windy day with partial lake ice coverage.
Ice chunks rubbing against each other
1.0 min
Fragmented thin ice sections rubbing against each other as they are moved by wind and waves.
Thin ice in the wave
21.0 min
Long reverberations of thin ice sheet being moved by wind driven waves.
Sleep & ambience
Longer, carefully curated under-ice pieces with slow dynamics and no sudden loud transients, intended for deep focus or sleep.
These tracks are manually reviewed end-to-end for gentle dynamics.
Soft groans under falling snow
8hr 45min sleep-safe
Gentle, low-level creaks and distant shifts under a blanket of fresh snow — curated for sleep.
Rig at a glance
- Hydrophone: Cetacean Research custom phantom powered CRT-40P
- Recorder: Zoom F3 (32-bit float audio recorder)
- Interface: MOTU M2 audio interface into Raspberry Pi running DarkIce
- Power: Solar + LiFePO₄ battery pack
- Network: Wi-Fi bridge back to the main network