Thursday 17 November 2022

Unnervingly different: Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson's Landvættirnar fjórar

Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson: Landvættirnar fjórar

Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson: Landvættirnar fjórar; Þórunn Björndóttir, Steinunn Vala Pálsdóttir, Ásthildur Ákadóttir, Óskar Magnússon, Páll Ivan frá Eiðum , Andrés Þór Þorvarðarson; Carrier Records

Familiar elements re-combined into an unnervingly different world inspired by organic non-metrical rhythms, ancient tunings, and Icelandic folklore

I first came across the music of Icelandic composer Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson in 2020 when his Sinfonia was issued on Carrier Records [see my review]. I have to confess that whilst I was struck by Steinn Gunnarsson's mixture of anarchy, experimentalism and individuality, I also brought up the fact the sound world on the disc rather reminded me of the TV series The Clangers. To his great credit, Steinn Gunnarsson rather than objecting took the idea on board with humour and when emailing me about the new disc, The Clangers had a mention.

Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson's new disc on Carrier Records, Landvættirnar fjórar features the ensemble Steinalda, six performers, a group of musicians cherry-picked from various other Icelandic ensembles by the composer - Þórunn Björndóttir (tenor recorder, ocarinas, bottles, rabbit calls), Steinunn Vala Pálsdóttir (flute, ocarina, bottles, samba whistle), Ásthildur Ákadóttir (melodica, toy piano,  percussion, various whistles), Óskar Magnússon (guitarlele, modified recorder, percussion), Páll Ivan frá Eiðum (percussion, modified recorder, toy piano, various whistles), and Andrés Þór Þorvarðarson (percussion, modified recorder, various whistles) - in four works inspired by the four guardian spirits that, in folklore, watch over the four corners of Iceland.

Again, Steinn Gunnarsson has created his own sound world that might take elements from others but does so in a way that draws you into a world of pitch, rhythm and timbre that seems to owe no allegiance to any other. Whilst reviewing Steinn Gunnarson's Sinfonia for Musicworks magazine in 2020, Nick Storring said "The listening experience feels like being welcomed into an eccentric, remote village where residents have freely mashed together ancient traditions and newly invented customs to devise their own rustic utopia.", and that is very much the case here.

In Icelandic folklore, the Landvættirnar fjórar, the Eastern dragon, Northern eagle, Western bull, and Southern giant make up the coat of arms and appear on all Icelandic currency. For some, they represent the identity of the land itself prior to the people, while others think that it’s a spin on the Four Evangelists, while, yet others believe they represent the four classical elements of antiquity.

Parallel to his inspiration in the Landvættirnar fjórar, Steinn Gunnarsson was also obsessed with dividing sounds into categories, first eight and then reducing them down to just four - short quick notes, long sustained notes, short percussive sounds, unstable glissando sounds. This reminded him of the four Landvættirnar fjórar and so the music was gradually born.

In 13th-century writer and poet Snorri Sturluson's Saga of Ólafur Tryggvason he describes the four landvættir (land wights), how from the east lumbers a poison-spewing dragon or giant lizard, trailed by swarms of reptiles and amphibians. Out of the north hurtles a massive vulture or other large bird, bringing flocks of smaller birds. A giant ox leads a herd of wights that drives the sorcerer away from the west, and a towering giant heads the wights that bar entry to the south. 

Here in four pieces, Dreki, Gammur, Griðungur, Bergris, each of three movements, Steinn Gunnarson explores these ideas in music which combine apparently anarchic ideas of pitch and rhythm to create something that is both amusing and unnerving. The sound world is miles away from what a 19th-century symphonic composer might make of these ideas. The music is not descriptive, instead, it draws you into this world and each movement feels like a tone picture. Not in the symphonic sense, but more related to the music that comes from graphic scores, that each line, each instrument is a representation of a concept, an idea, and that their formal relationship is less to do with correct classical construction than instinct and freedom.

Steinn Gunnarson is interested both in ancient tunings and traditional Icelandic poetic metres. His interest in animated scores has led to a creative freedom both in terms of intuitive explorations of rhythms that cannot be confined to any metronome, and extending this into ideas on intonation, harmony, sonorities and musical structure.

Listening to this disc I did think of The Clangers, but I was also reminded of my recent re-reading of Neil Price's terrific book, Children of Ash and Elm, a history of the Vikings that makes us understand quite how different these people were to us. Which led me to think, that in filmic representations of the Vikings, we should be thinking less about symphonic sound and more of Gunnarsson's mashup of ancient and modern, to create something unnervingly different.

The music is available via Bandcamp, as a download, a CD, double-vinyl and several limited editions which involve the striking artwork of Sam T Rees.

Steinalda performing Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson's Landvættirnar fjórar in March 2021 (Photo courtesy of Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson)
Steinalda performing Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson's Landvættirnar fjórar in March 2021 (Photo courtesy of Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson)

Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson (born 1982) - Landvættirnar fjórar
Þórunn Björndóttir (tenor recorder, ocarinas, bottles, rabbit calls), Steinunn Vala Pálsdóttir (flute, ocarina, bottles, samba whistle), Ásthildur Ákadóttir (melodica, toy piano, percussion, various whistles), Óskar Magnússon (guitarlele, modified recorder, percussion), Páll Ivan frá Eiðum (percussion, modified recorder, toy piano, various whistles), and Andrés Þór Þorvarðarson (percussion, modified recorder, various whistles)
CARRIER RECORDS 1CD [54.49]











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