After 6 months of drifting they made their way in the ship's boats to Elephant Island. Shackleton and five crewmates set sail in one of the boats to South Georgia island, a journey of 800 miles (1,300 kilometres) through the Southern Ocean. 

After a 17-day voyage, the crew and small boat reached the southern coast of South Georgia. Historians regard the voyage of the crew in a 22.5-foot (6.9 m) ship's boat through the "Furious Fifties" as one of the greatest small-boat journeys ever completed.

Shackleton and two others crossed the island's mountains on foot to a whaling station where they organized the rescue of the rest of the crew. Ultimately, the entire Endurance crew returned home, without loss of life. 

Welp, I hadn't intended on writing that much about Shackleton but it's such an amazing story. That was two years ago when I learned about Shackleton. Fast forward to today & I'm reading a book called "Antarctica" by Kim Stanley Robinson which has rekindled my fascination with the continent. I have now learned about Amundsen and his trek to the pole. And about Scott's tragic expedition in which he made it to the pole but froze to death on the way back. A surviving member of Scott's crew wrote a book about a part of the trip with a great title - "The Worst Journey in the World."

Oof, that was a long-winded way of saying that I have had Antarctica on the brain lately. Of course, I had to create a mix to go with my obsession. One way to approach this mix would be to use atmospheric dub tracks. A lot of ambient dub music uses environmental themes and cold, arctic imagery. I thought that was the direction I was going to go until I stumbled on a bunch of tracks from William Ryan Fritch. He had a ton of great titles that fit perfectly, such as "On Frozen Ground" & "Ghosts in the Gale". And a couple of new tracks, "Blistering Wind" & "A Fissure Too Wide", are from his new album, Polarity, coming out this week. 

After hearing those tracks I decided to go with a more organic sound. It seemed to fit better when thinking of journeys happening between 1905 to 1917. There are some electronics and synths that show up but generally, the mix has a more acoustic, orchestral feel. 

The track titles show how the mix will take the listener on a journey that is a composite of many expeditions in Antarctica. The track by Irezumi is called Endurance, the name of Shackleton's ship. He uses some spoken word in the track that I assume is supposed to be Shackleton. The mix finishes with a whispering wind and the beautiful track "Before My Time" with vocals from Scarlett Johansson and lyrics that work well with the theme.

Bundle up and enjoy this excursion to the bottom of the world.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Okomotive, Joel Schoch - Sail, my Friend! (FAR: Lone Sails Soundtrack 2018)