Solo cello
Hildur Gudnadottir from Iceland have created music with cult bands Pan Sonic, Throbbing Gristle and Múm. For Ultima, she has only brought along her life partner – a cello carrying thunderstorms and cirrocumulus clouds. By Eirik Kydland
– I did not choose to play cello. The cello chose me.
According to 27-year-old Hildur Gudnadottir, some force of nature must have been involved when she first grabbed the cello bow at the age of five. She’s held on to it ever since, regardless of whether she has worked with classical composing techniques, pop music or electronica. Gudnadottir’s passion for her instrument, combined with an artistic curiosity and a diverse taste in music, has already given the young Icelander a varied musical life. She has released two solo albums – the last one came out this year on the prestigious label Touch – composed music to plays and collaborated with the noise pioneers in Throbbing Gristle, the techno minimalists Pan Sonic and fellow Icelanders in the pop band múm.
– I identify with the range of the cello. The instrument covers a wide range of emotions, both the deep, the crass, the high and the twinkling, says Gudnadottir.
Broke every rule
Hildur Gudnadottir is classically trained, but in her adolescence and student days, she was – like many otherh – mostly engaged in rock bands, writing pop songs and experimenting with noise. She can tell us theat she has broken every rule she’s learned at the academies of art in Reykjavik and Berlin, but that the years at school still have given her a technical and theoretical background that has been crucial for the kind of music she produces today.
– I was taught finger- and bowtechniques I never would have developed on my own, but I felt that classical music didn’t inspire me much. Also I disliked the struggle and competition between people working with classical music. However I gradually started to play the cello all by myself, and it was then that the sonic world of the instrument opened up to me. Suddenly I understood that I could combine the cello with the experiments I had so much fun with otherwise.
Being curious when it comes to explore new sounds and different genres is what Gudnadottir considers her greatest driving force as an artist. This is also the main reason for her constantly initiating new collaboration projects in music.
– It is important not to freeze in one form of expression, in one type of music. Also it is fascinating to experience how completely different people can establish a unique contact through music, disregarding gender, genre and instruments. What I think about when playing with others is this, raher than analyzing what we really are doing, she elaborates.
Music for clouds
Earlier this year, Hildur Gudnadottirs second solo album Without Sinking was released, a dramatic, almost expressionistic recordnig that precisely shows what enormous register Gudnadottir manages to trick out of the cello.
– The album is constructed by me layering several cello tones. This creates a new, many-faceted quality of the instrument. It was like the range of the cello was additionally expanded. Almost like creating a new instrument, she reckons, before stressing that she has not looped, cut, pasted or manipulated the cello tones electronically on the recording.
– It is essential that every tone should have a life of its own. Det er essensielt at hver tone skal få ha sitt eget liv.
– Is it true that clouds were an important inspiration for the album?
– I’m fascinated by the fact that matter – like water, for instance – can assume so many different shapes. This resembles what I wanted to do with my celo. I wanted to use it like water, so to speak, where the tones and the sounds were to be bound together by different textures and combinations. This is also manifested in the compositions of the record. Some of the works are heavy, almost like cumulo-nimbus clouds with thunder, other are thin and sharp, or simply nice and fluffy.
The curse of nature
For Icelandic artist, it is a well known phenomenon that the national nature always is emphasized when describing their music. «Tundra», «geysir» and «glacier» has become commonplace in reviews of artists like Sigúr Ros, Múm and Jóhann Jóhannsson. Hildur Gudnadottir has also experienced this. For example, the website Dusted Reviews wrote the following about Without Sinking: «The whole album feels like it was composed to go with a film chock full of tragic images, or maybe a coffee-table book of black and white tableaux depicting misty moors or icy fjords». But one could argue that an artist is asking for it, making instrumental music with a cloud theme?
– Ultimately, everyone are influenced by their surroundings, whatever they may be. Therefore Icelanders will always be inspired by the nature in one way or another. As a Norwegian, you know for yourself how you are influenced by raw, intense nature. On the other hand, I think there are very few Icelandic musicians that actively work with these images of nature in there music. I don’t know anyone who write songs about glaciers, Gudnadottir stresses.
She currently lives in Berlin, which gives her a certain distance to her native country. Therefore she regards the music writers’ exaggerated nature craze both as a curse and as something positive for musicians from Iceland.
– Obviously many find it exotic to associate mountains and glaciers with all Icelandic music, and consequently more people might check out the music from Iceland. However you have to explain this in every single interview you do, and this might be tiring for Icelandic artists.
– I agree. Looking at how the credit crisis has affected art in Iceland should definately be a more relevant question?
– Definitely. The credit crisis on Iceland affects everyone in the country. Not just financially, but most of all mentally. The times are tough. and the crisis has so many dimensions that it is hard to take it to heart. But they say tough times are good for the arts, so we’ll see what time will bring.