“Collaborating musically with other species is a bit like embracing the reality of fairy tales,” says Jim Nollman. “Humans and animals really are the same as creators of song.”
That philosophy is the crux of Orcas’ Greatest Hits, a sublimely offbeat new Smithsonian Folkways collection of collaborations between humans and orca whales recorded between 1985 and 2002 in what may have been the world’s first underwater music studio. An avant-garde sound artist, guitarist, naturalist, author and lifelong innovator in interspecies communication, Nollman stakes out common ground between experimental art and environmental stewardship.
One of the LP’s 14 tracks, “The 47 Whale Raga” was recorded in 1986 and assembled from several hours of tapes made over the course of a week in British Columbia’s Johnstone Strait. It begins with Nollman improvising on electric guitar around Raag Jhinjhoti, a light and playful Hindustani raga. His performance eventually captured the attention of three orca pods, resulting in a stunning exchange that blurs the line between composition and communication.
“My own real-time music with whales and dolphins never had a scientific component,” says Nollman. “I had to learn to recognize the whales as more like tribes than species.”
We’re proud to premiere Jim Nollman’s “The 47 Whale Raga.” Orca’s Greatest Hits is out August 14.
—Hobart Rowland
