Released on forms of minutiae, Near the Bear finds Cheryl E. Leonard at her most exploratory and reflective. The album, rooted in Leonard’s extensive fieldwork during a Svalbard residency and subsequent research in Greenland, expands her signature method of sculptural instrumentation and micro-aural investigation. Each of the album’s five tracks—“Moffen,” “Glugge,” “Thresholds,” “Mørketid,” and “Sila”—immerses listeners in unique Arctic environments. Sound sources include everything from stones and bones to kelp and driftwood, as well as the sounds produced by scraping saw blades, tapping beakers, and metallic handrails repurposed as instruments.
Opening with “Moffen,” the album celebrates the Arctic’s playful and sacred presence through Leonard’s use of the “kelpinet”—a dried kelp tube paired with a saxophone mouthpiece—created in collaboration with Phillip Greenlief. This piece channels the keening cries of walrus calves amid echoes of waves and wind, inviting listeners into a world both whimsical and reverent. “Glugge,” recorded aboard a ship, contrasts natural percussion with the intrusion of machine sound, underlining the tension between human presence and the fragile ecosystem. “Thresholds” dramatizes the approach of climate disturbance, building from delicate percussive drops to a foreboding windscape—a sonic metaphor for crossing into environmental uncertainty.
The album’s centerpiece, “Mørketid,” plunges into the darkness of polar night in a former Soviet coal mining town. Leonard animates both the ghostly stillness and latent life of the setting using improvisation on metal surfaces, breaths, layered field recordings, and uncanny objects. The journey culminates in “Sila,” where wind and wave converge—only the elemental forces remain after humanity’s passage.
A booklet of photos and detailed liner notes accompanies the release, adding context and narrative depth to Leonard’s investigation. The album resonates with contemporary climate urgency, both documenting and sonically celebrating Arctic wildness while issuing a subtle warning about its imperiled future. Leonard’s work stands as both art and advocacy—a vivid sound journal capturing the spirit, history, and precarious beauty of polar landscapes, and an invitation to listen beyond the immediate, into the shared environments “near the bear”.
