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Iceland

  • CD/Digital releases

    Bára Gísladóttir & Skúli Sverrisson – Live from the Spirit Store / Bára Gísladóttir – VÍDDIR

    by 5:4 October 28, 2022 • 09:31
    October 28, 2022 • 09:31

    Over the last few years i’ve been more and more deeply impressed by the music of Icelandic composer and performer Bára Gísladóttir. First contact was at the Dark Music Days in 2020, when i saw her in action with Skúli Sverrisson, forming a complex double bass / electric bass soundworld…

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  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Anna Thorvaldsdottir – ARCHORA (World Première)

    by 5:4 August 13, 2022 • 05:00
    August 13, 2022 • 05:00

    The relationship between Anna Thorvaldsdottir‘s music and nature has always been, to put it mildly, complicated. Far from being a composer merely setting out (as far too many have claimed far too often) to evoke the wildness of her native Iceland, Thorvaldsdottir has tended to be much more concerned with…

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  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Hildur Guðnadóttir – The Fact of the Matter (World Première)

    by 5:4 July 21, 2022 • 16:15
    July 21, 2022 • 16:15

    Last night’s Prom concert included the first of this year’s crop of premières. The Fact of the Matter is a 16-minute response to the current state of the world by Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir. In the pre-concert discussion, she spoke about the divisions between people, and the feeling that “we’re…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Dark Music Days 2022 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 March 14, 2022 • 19:34
    March 14, 2022 • 19:34

    As i mentioned previously, the majority of the music i heard at this year’s Dark Music Days fell somewhere between emotional allusion and full-on abstraction. In many ways it was the most abstract music that made some of the strongest and most long-lasting impressions, primarily because of the composers’ focus…

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Dark Music Days 2022 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 March 11, 2022 • 13:15
    March 11, 2022 • 13:15

    Postponed from its usual position in late January to early March due to last-minute Covid restriction shenanigans, Iceland’s Dark Music Days festival was therefore not quite so dark as usual. All the same, it was hardly the Light Music Days, and in any case Mother Nature was seemingly more determined…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Berglind María Tómasdóttir – The Lokkur Project

    by 5:4 February 7, 2022 • 17:04
    February 7, 2022 • 17:04

    Among the plethora of releases i’ve received in recent times there’s been a number of especially noteworthy items, either in the form of sizeable box sets or otherwise ‘unusual’ editions, so throughout the course of this month, alongside other things, i’ll be exploring some of them. Surely the strangest (and,…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2021 (Part 3)

    by 5:4 November 29, 2021 • 15:46
    November 29, 2021 • 15:46

    One of my recurring trains of thought during HCMF 2021 was concerned with the notion of continuity. This was, very simply, due to the fact that all of the best things i heard at the festival had an incredibly clear, logical sense running through them that, regardless of their inner…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Berglind María Tómasdóttir – Ethereality

    by 5:4 October 12, 2021 • 10:58
    October 12, 2021 • 10:58

    The other recent release of Icelandic music that i’ve been spending time with lately is Ethereality, by flautist Berglind María Tómasdóttir (whose Icelandic Flute Music album i explored at the start of the year). When writing about Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Enigma i commented on the way the distinction between the different…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Anna Thorvaldsdottir – Enigma

    by 5:4 October 11, 2021 • 14:23
    October 11, 2021 • 14:23

    i’ve been spending quite a bit of time lately with two interesting recent releases of Icelandic music. The first is a short album (an EP really) featuring a string quartet by Anna Thorvaldsdottir titled Enigma. The first thing that struck me, long before actually listening to the music, is that it’s…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Gunnar Andreas Kristinsson – Moonbow

    by 5:4 May 27, 2021 • 10:39
    May 27, 2021 • 10:39

    The Sono Luminus label’s ongoing commitment to Icelandic music continues with Moonbow, a new album featuring five works by Gunnar Andreas Kristinsson. Hitherto, my only contact with Gunnar’s music has been via his 2013 release Patterns, showcasing a variety of his earlier output for piano and organ. That album had…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Bára Gísladóttir & Skúli Sverrisson – Caeli

    by 5:4 April 22, 2021 • 15:18
    April 22, 2021 • 15:18

    Early last year, before life on earth tilted over into abject abnormality, i experienced a performance at the Dark Music Days in Reykjavík that, in hindsight, i perhaps summed up a little too succinctly. On the one hand, it was completely true when i wrote, of the performance given by…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Iceland Symphony Orchestra – Occurrence

    by 5:4 February 3, 2021 • 09:56
    February 3, 2021 • 09:56

    One of the first new releases of 2021 to catch my attention is Occurrence featuring the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. According to conductor Daníel Bjarnason, this is “the third and last album of the ISO project” which, if true, is a shame in both a positive and a negative sense. Positive:…

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree musicThematic series

    Berglind Tómasdóttir – Icelandic Flute Music

    by 5:4 January 28, 2021 • 05:00
    January 28, 2021 • 05:00

    For the last two years, in the final week of January i’ve been heading off to Iceland for the annual Dark Music Days festival. Like pretty much all festivals at the moment, DMD has been postponed for a few months, but as a small consolation i’m going to conclude this…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Anna Thorvaldsdottir – Rhízōma

    by 5:4 November 3, 2020 • 11:44
    November 3, 2020 • 11:44

    Something that comes up a lot in my writing about music is polarities. Perhaps it’s understandable; many composers strive to establish some kind of drama in their work, which often involves the juxtaposition and/or interplay of polarised types of material or behaviour. A lot of the satisfaction and enjoyment from…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Bára Gísladóttir – HĪBER

    by 5:4 October 21, 2020 • 11:25
    October 21, 2020 • 11:25

    At the more intriguing end of the Icelandic contemporary music continuum is HĪBER, a new album of electroacoustic pieces by Bára Gísladóttir. When writing about Bára’s performance at this year’s Dark Music Days (with Skúli Sverrisson), i remarked how “what we heard in the first five minutes … was essentially…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Kjartan Sveinsson – Der Klang der Offenbarung des Göttlichen

    by 5:4 October 20, 2020 • 12:44
    October 20, 2020 • 12:44

    One of the aspects of contemporary music from Iceland that i find most fascinating is its tendency to position itself at extremes, rooted either in slavish convention or daring unorthodoxy. It’s a polarity that’s revealed itself again in some recent releases of Icelandic music, the results of which have been…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Various – Epicycle II

    by 5:4 August 27, 2020 • 14:08
    August 27, 2020 • 14:08

    Released tomorrow is a new album of eight works by Icelandic composers, all of which have been curated by – and in some cases created in collaboration with – cellist and vocalist Gyða Valtýsdóttir. The general tone of these works, all of which are quite brief, is meditative in nature,…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Páll Ragnar Pálsson – Atonement

    by 5:4 May 22, 2020 • 13:10
    May 22, 2020 • 13:10

    One of the first works of contemporary music that i ever got to know was Dérive 1 by Pierre Boulez. i fell for the piece pretty hard, and one of the main reasons for that infatuation – which hasn’t really subsided in the decades since – was the way Boulez…

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  • Outside-In

    Outside-In: Þóranna Björnsdóttir

    by 5:4 May 19, 2020 • 10:07
    May 19, 2020 • 10:07

    The latest contribution to the Outside-In field recording compilation is from Icelandic composer and sound-artist Þóranna Björnsdóttir. Þóranna has written the following introduction to her recording: In November 2017, I embarked on a journey to South Africa to participate in the 5th Annual Sonic Mmabolela workshop/residency. Conceived and directed by…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    Dark Music Days 2020 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 February 9, 2020 • 08:01
    February 9, 2020 • 08:01

    As i mentioned previously, allusions to or evocations of nature were few and far between at this year’s Dark Music Days, indicating the strength and diversity of Iceland’s more searching, abstract approach to composition. This seemed to be precisely the point of Sigurður Árni Jónsson’s Illusion of Explanatory Depth, premièred…

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5:4
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    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
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