Caeli
Composed and performed by Bára Gisladóttir (b.1989)and Skúli Sverrisson (b.1966)
No recording information provided
SONO LUMINUS SLE70020 [69.47 + 59.52]
Now and again, we reviewers find our brains stretched even more than usual. That has certainly been the case with me with this double-disc album, as no documentation is supplied. All that we have to go on are the nineteen tracks on a black background with tiny specks of stars - star clusters and distant nebulae, I think - decorating the surfaces of the CD covers. So what does it all mean? Is this the music of far-flung planets, or the music of the spheres?
Before attempting to describe the music, let’s look at the titles. I have inserted translations next to them as the CD doesn’t offer any help. My apologies for those of you conversant with the languages below and also for any weak translations.
I thought at first that the story of creation was being alluded to, but that is probably just a small part of the concept. Certainly, the natural world and its relationship to the universe seems to be one of the inspirations.
The Internet came to the rescue. The composers are both Icelandic in origin but from different generations and they often work together. Sverrisson is known as a bass guitarist; Gisladóttir is mainly a string player specialising in double bass and she has also worked in the electronic music field – and that is the key to what we are listening to here.
Each track is improvised and develops, mainly, out of a deep pedal point, often moving to multiple pedal points, overlaid by various ‘noises’, played, I think, on the double-bass and bass guitar and possibly other string instruments. These sounds are created with multiphonics and a wide range of advanced techniques such as bowing on the bridge and the fingerboard, sometimes using a percussive effect. Also employed, and for much of the time, are extreme harmonics enabling pitches of stratospheric dimensions. For example, ‘soaring skies’ offers a halo of quiet string cluster chords over which an elaborate solo part explores all of the above possibilities. In addition, it seems to me that the sounds are then explored and expanded further through computer enhancement and alteration. Some of you might remember the term ‘electro-acoustic’ music, which could be applied here.
The result, however, is that almost all the tracks begin quietly and grow in texture, complexity and dynamics, sometimes varying the form a little but the final result for each section is more or less the same, with little variety throughout the great span of over two hours.
While I can feel and grasp, to a great degree, what the musicians are trying to do and to experiment with, and can admire their technical know-how, in the end I feel that the whole enterprise is pretentious and far too long.
Gary Higginson
Contents
Unum caelum (One sky) [5.20]
Cieli pesanti (Heavy skies) [13.40]
Caelum apertium (Open skies) [9.58]
SVEIFLA (‘Swing’ –In Icelandic) [7.12]
Caeli movendi sunt et terra (Heaven and the earth) [18.31]
Anche il mare e un cielo (Both the sea and the sky) [3.27]
I believe so [5.53]
SEIGLE (‘She was trying’ in Polish) [1.59]
Anche la terra e un cielo [10.10]
Soaring skies [5.45]
All heavens [10.28]
Stretching skies [6.29]
Anche l’inferno e un cielo (Both hell and heaven) [10.38]
Harmonic interlude [2.52]
The heavens have no mercy [2.22]
Gul viavorun (‘Yellow viavorun’ in Norwegian) [1.53]
FORCE [2.12]
Some sort of closure [4.04]
Afterlife [2.53]
