Hildur Guðnadóttir

Without Sinking

It is dark, dense, and brooding. The sky is grey. Winter is refusing to leave. Wind becomes the rhythm; dissonance – the melody. The cello whispers and moans in the delicate hands of the Icelandic composer, Hildur Guðnadóttir. Perhaps it’s grieving for an uncertain future, perhaps accepting a buried past. The voice of sorrow seeps through the trembling fingers and saturates everything around it with something invisible but wet and salty. Then, a heavy, thick, warm knot builds up inside my chest. And when I sigh, it escapes in a condensed vapour, ascends past the naked tree tops and joins a dark cloud in a stubborn winter sky. Finally, the rain falls. And I cringe at all the pain. In 2013, Guðnadóttir was already not a newcomer to the scene. As a classically trained cellist, she has performed with and contributed to works by her Icelandic contemporary artists such as múm, Valgeir Sigurðsson, and Ben Frost, as well as Hafler Trio, Nico Muhly, and even Pan Sonic. For Without Sinking, she was able to round up a talented group of friends, like Skúli Sverrisson, the prolific Jóhann Jóhannsson, and her father, Guðni Franzson. Without any exaggerations, this is indeed an acoustic modern classical marvel.

2024 UPDATE: This review was written a decade before the Chernobyl and the Joker soundtracks. Back then, she mostly released on Touch and 12 Tónar. I don’t believe there was a Wikipedia page about her music. Since then, she has won the Academy Award for Best Original Score, the BAFTA Award for Best Original Music and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. Deutsche Grammophon is proudly displaying her works on its website, and, as we say, the rest is history. Have we known all along? And don’t get me wrong, I love Hildur’s soundtracks – they are divine – but I do hope that she can still find the time for another solo album. I think the last one was in 2012, titled Leyfðu Ljósinu, also on Touch.

Rafael Anton Irisarri

The Unintentional Sea

One of the albums that kept me cosy throughout a brutal stretch of the winter of 2014 was the fourth full-length by Rafael Anton Irisarri, titled The Unintentional Sea. This follow-up to the much acclaimed The North Bend was essentially the soundtrack to my morning commute. Even now, as I replay the album, a shiver passes down my spine as I recall my daily fight against incoming slush, the Hudson River rolling with huge hunks of ice, the frigid gust clawing at my cheeks already wet with tears caused by wind. The music is neither dark ambient nor drone; instead, it’s a heavily textured soundscape influenced by a portrait of a place. Shuffling clicks, humming machines, and moaning organics make up a complex organism that slowly evolves, moving through the landscape like a thick morning haze. The unfolding is gradual, moody and glum, full of vinyl crackle, guitar-driven whirr, sparse piano keys and meticulously controlled atmospherics. And yet, each track maintains a characteristic melody, immediately recognizable when you hear it again. The album’s progression attempts to mimic the transformation of the man-made body of water, a failed river redirection to assist Californian agricultural development at the turn of the 20th century that became the Salton Sea.

2024 UPDATE: Irisarri is still very active in the music scene, although much of his time appears to be spent at the Black Knoll Studio, where he masters others’ works. He recently released a remastered version of his 2017 album, Midnight Colours. There was also his fantastic collaboration with Thomas Meluch as Orcas, How To Color A Thousand Mistakes [which is still on my list to cover!]. And, finally, I am looking forward to his new album, FAÇADISMS, which features Julia Kent on cello and a collaboration track with KMRU.

Ian Hawgood

Impermanence

Ian Hawgood returns with another contemplative classic, this time on James Murray‘s boutique Slowcraft imprint, truly prepared “for people who treasure beautiful audio artefacts.” I know that this is a very personal and highly revered little treasure, and so I treat it with respect, with worship, as such music merits. The album sprawls across the sonic vapours with elegant buzzing and hum, produced by the analogue machines guided by the mastering touch of this UK musician. The sound is allowed to evolve, transform, and then decay, all that surrounds it and what it wraps in turn. Slow-moving ambient textures rise and fall, swell and recede, into a breathing of its own, with the vibrations that make music. The manipulated medium of reel-to-reel tape machines, degraded cassette recordings, and analogue synthesizers weave a love song of Impermanence. Beneath the outline of the used equipment, listed in detail on the album’s Bandcamp, we find such magical items as a “Sony Cassette Tape hanging from our apartment by the river in Nakajuku, Tokyo,” and a very bold proclaiming statement that “No computers were used in these recordings.” Admirers of everything hand-made, intimate, and intricately curated will love this entry in the exceptional and unclassifiable music series.

2024 UPDATE: Hawgood is exceptionally prolific. Even when he has “dry spells,” he releases a torrent of music from his archives. Whether accidental recordings, sketches, or wrinkled tape loops found on the cutting floor, he turns each texture into a perfect sonic sanctuary. This year alone, he has released a few singles, EPs, and albums on his own Home Normal label. Among them are collaborations with David Cordero, Wil Bolton, and the above-mentioned James Murray as Slow Reels. You can’t go wrong with any of the above. I recommend that when you wake up on a Sunday morning, you just hit play on his discography and let it run all week…