Excerpt from Jacob Ganz article about the band Efterklang (meaning reverb) recording in Spitsbergen, Svalbard in the High Arctic: After docking in Piramida, there was nothing to do but wander, collect sounds and worry about the polar bears, one of three land mammals native to the island. One of the reasons for taking the trip, Stolberg says, was hearing that the world’s northernmost grand piano sits in the town’s empty concert hall. But most of the instruments the band found weren’t designed with music in mind. The trio began exploring the abandoned warehouses, playgrounds, residences and courtyards, banging on corrugated metal siding, lamps and fuel tanks (“When you’re up there for nine days, you get to hit on a lot of metal,” Stolberg says. “After some days all these start to sound the same to you.”) For entire article by Ganz at NPR follow this link: How One Band Turned A Ghost Town Into A Giant Recording Studio http://n.pr/YF3OSZ Members of Efterklang include Casper Clausen and Mads Brauer. Book about town by Hein Bjerck-Persistent Memories: Piramiden- A Soviet Mining Town in the High Arctic Published 2010