AUDIO WATCHDOG


By Douglas E. Winter


Kvikmyndatónlist (Part One)


One hundred and twenty kilometers east of Reykjavik, at Iceland’s southernmost point, I’m standing on the black sand beach at Reynisfjara. The November wind sprays salty snowflakes from the North Atlantic onto my face. This place is transcendent: ancient, ethereal, desolate, majes- tic... and profoundly moving. The same words could describe Icelandic music.


My first stop in Rejkyavik, after checking into the 101 Hotel, is 12 Tónar, famous as both an endangered species—a record shop (the best in the world, according to GRAMOPHONE)—and as a boutique label championing Icelandic music. There, Jöhannes Ágústsson offers me an espresso, a comfy couch, headphones, and the first of many discs I will bring home: STAFNBÚI (2012; 12 Tónar 12T051, €20.00, 12 tracks, 51m 18s), a CD/book package that represents the es- sential Kvikmyndatónlist (“Icelandic sound- track”). Performed by chanter Steindór Andersen with music written and arranged by classical mini- malist and film composer Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson (CHILDREN OF NATURE, ANGELS OF THE UNI- VERSE), STAFNBÚI curates the Icelandic poetry narratives known as rímur, which date to the 14th Century. Their language-driven rhythms and epic yet fragile ambitions prefigure the urges for eclecticism, authenticity, and identity that power the island’s music today.


Ari Alexander Ergis Magnússon’s documentary GARGANDI SNILLD (2005; US: SCREAMING MAS- TERPIECE), offered a glimpse into Iceland’s emergent indie music scene, which in its daring and diversity trumps—and plainly outlives—the Se- attle and London of the 1990s. Today, Iceland


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has more working professional musicians per capita than any other nation in the world. Al- though the island has its share of genre music, including a thriving Northern metal cadre, jazz, blues, and even hip hop, its “mainstream,” whether pop, rock, classical—or, more often, in between or beyond—can only be termed (and in the best of ways) “avant-garde.” With so many classically trained musicians, a tradition of cross- genre collaboration, isolation from commercial demands, and a respect for analog instrumenta- tion, Iceland’s contemporary music is folk art of the highest caliber.


Consider its representatives on the world stage: the iconic, if occasionally precious, Björk Gudmundsdóttir (who this year is the subject of a MoMA retrospective) and Sigur Rós, which helped father “post-music,” reinventing the rock band as a chamber ensemble (with bowed guitar) and cham- pioning instrumental soundscapes in which Jón Thor “Jónsi” Birgisson’s falsetto vocals—in Icelan- dic or the invented Vonlenska (“Hopelandic”)—serve as surreal melodic counterpoint. Björk and Sigur Rós embrace minimalism, the ambient and organic, and the chaotic and spacious (versus the emulate/ sample/consume model popular on Anglo-Ameri- can charts): music as readily played in lighthouses and cathedrals as in clubs and stadiums. Yet Sigur Rós is capable of blistering rock-and-roll, as wit- ness its own “Starless,” the 11+minute “(8)” from their 2002 album “( )”. Not surprisingly, its music has accompanied more than twenty films and tele- vision programs, notably Danny Boyle’s 127 HOURS (2010); and Birgisson, at director Cameron Crowe’s behest, scored WE BOUGHT A ZOO (2011; Sony Music/Columbia, $11.96, 15 tracks, 51m 40s). In concert and studio, Sigur Rós is often sup- ported by a string quartet—typically, the female members of amiina, who composed and performed scores for a trilogy of Lotte Reiniger’s pre-Disney silhouette animations under the title ANIMAGICA. Although classically trained, amiina’s members de- ploy an idiosyncratic array of instruments—from guitars and saws to Melodica (a reed/keyboard in- strument) and Gideon (or table) harp (a compact fretless zither). The single version of “Hilli” from their first album, KURR (2007; Ever Ever11CD,

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