The most immersive Icelandic music i’ve encountered is by Þóranna Björnsdóttir, whose collaborative work LUCID blew my mind a few years back (becoming by Best Album of 2019), and who has consistently captivated me on the various occasions i’ve heard her performing live. Released in 2022, Þyrpingar [convergences – the composer’s preferred translation] is a document of a live improvisation comprising two parts where, depending on your perspective, the second continues the first, does the same as the first but in a slightly different way, or is separate but related to the first. This distinction isn’t vital, if anything it’s an integral part of what makes inhabiting the soundworld(s) the beguiling experience it is.

Þyrpingar is essentially an example of what i’ve previously termed meta-ambient, tapping into the behavioural quintessence of ambient though not necessarily designed to be heard with an ambient mindset. This is primarily due to the subtle way that Þóranna keeps the music liminal, not simply in terms of how much it’s vying for our attention (interesting / ignorable) but how active or passive it is, from the perspective of both specific, individual sound elements as well as larger, textural agglomerations. The fact that Þóranna’s translation preference for the title is ‘convergences’, may well likely be in some way related to this active / passive balance. Perhaps when i speak of an ‘active’ moment or episode in the music, Þóranna would describe this as a ‘convergence’, where the assorted sound elements come together in some form of alignment or conjunction, reinforcing or supporting each other in a sympathetic resonance.
The specifics of those elements are also liminal, with most sounds being sufficiently divorced from their source that they speak as something autonymous, with differing degrees of anonymity. They generally tend towards archetypal forms – pitch, noise, rhythm – arranged into a shifting landscape that manages to sound substantial while existing in a state of flux. There are times in the first part when faint strains of tangible music can be heard, a glimpse of something extant, possibly archaic, that becomes so easily melded into the bands of buzz and pitch that it never sounds like an anachronistic intrusion. Likewise a very occasional piano presence, teasing chords at arbitrary moments, on the one hand apropos of nothing, yet never jarring against the music’s ongoing nebulous shape-shifting.
The second part introduces clearer vocals hints into the texture, and in fact this is one of the curious features of this part, that while in some respects many of the sound elements seem more clear and tangible than previously, to an extent the music seems (initially at least) more impenetrable. Calls from whirly tubes project through, increasingly strongly, and for much of its remaining duration a recurring two-note rhythm sits at its centre, with everything else moving in relation to this pulse. They still move with complete freedom – there’s no underlying metric grid – but there is nonetheless a sense of order, and the texture also sounds somewhat simpler around these rhythms. Distorted electronic tones emerge, something akin to an engine revs up and down, but Þóranna keeps it gentle, causing the multiple elements to work in parallel to form a lovely disparate chorus, a complex sound bath that definitely could be described as a ‘convergence’.
It’s a beautiful, deeply immersive dive into measured yet multifaceted sonic territory, managing to strike a superb listening balance: teasing, thwarting but ultimately satisfying the ear. Originally released on cassette by Icelandic label Space Odyssey Adventurous Music, it’s available as a free download from their Bandcamp site.
i also want to highlight two other recent (non-free) releases of Þóranna Björnsdóttir’s music, both of which feature soprano Heiða Árnadóttir, and both of which i’ve had the good fortune to experience in live performance. The first is Ilm-og ómleikar / Scent & Soundgames, a work for voice, piano and electronics that i heard at the 2022 Dark Music Days. To some extent it’s even more elusive than Þyrpingar, placing the voice together with noise (abstract, but at times suggesting wind and possibly fire) and piano notes as well as sounds of friction and impact from inside the instrument. The original performance incorporated scent (and movement) into the experience too, but the soundworld alone acts a bit like a scent, moving through distinct phases while remaining allusive rather than direct. Vocalise provides focus for a time, its relationship with the piano sympathetic at first, later speaking as two parts in parallel. Beyond that it would be risky to say too much about such delicate material; it’s no less immersive than Þóranna’s other work but is expressed with a lightness of touch that makes it feel frangible, all about suggestion rather than statement.
Þá birtist sjálfið / And the Self Appears for voice and electronics was performed at the 2020 Dark Music Days, and is a much bolder work. The whole piece revolves around Heiða’s voice, from a texture of vocal words and gestures, developing into a difficult episode where it’s as if her voice is utmost strained, trying to sing, the attempt littered with faltering, wavering and croaking. Emphatic sounds – which, in this context, seem half-imagined – are imposed onto this, cries of “ha!” and brief bursts of laughter, suggesting it’s more than just an uphill struggle. The work climaxes in an extensive final sequence where song finally becomes possible, a slow, halting, folk-like melody becoming caught up in ever more enormous waves of surging electronic rapture. Though the voice is sometimes low in the mix, there’s never quite the sense that she’s overwhelmed; on the contrary, it’s hard not to hear her as the core of this vastness, perhaps its entire impetus, the finitude of her song causing an infinity of resonance.
Self-released by Þóranna Björnsdóttir in November last year, both are available from her Bandcamp site.