Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.10.2014, Side 28

28 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 16 — 2014TRAVEL
I’d seen my prerequisite Björk videos and
the film of Sigur Rós travelling around the
countryside. But aside from these musical
interpretations of the landscape I didn’t
really have my own concept of what those
places would be like, let alone what they
would sound like.
Iceland, like any place, has unique fea-
tures that make up how we see the coun-
try. You don’t even have to leave Reykjavík
to hear the uniqueness of Iceland—its
“sonic footprint,” so to speak. At the har-
bour the boats come in and out, dragging
chains to the dock with noisy fervour, un-
loading everything from shipping contain-
ers to vehicles to packed crates of fish. On
Laugavegur you’ll hear both the shopping
and party scenes; by day the air is full of
family chats and commerce, and by night,
the sounds of broken beer glasses, dance
club beats, and a few curse words mix in
with very moist make-out slobbering and
some early morning seagulls.
We headed out with a guidebook, a
couple bottles of wine, the phone num-
bers of hostels that we’d booked, and
lots of trashy snack food. The first thing
I noticed was that outside of Reykjavík,
the sonic landscape changes drastically.
Every place we visited had its own sound
profile, made up of the birds and animals
in the area and the rustling of plants and
grasses. Naturally, many of those places
were dominated by water—Route 1 never
goes too far from a water source. Where
there wasn’t water, there was sure to be
wind—and lots of it. Iceland’s sonic profile
wouldn’t be anything without its weather.
The West
We drove first around the Snæfellsnes
Peninsula north of Reykjavík, thus begin-
ning my obsession with the sounds of in-
numerable waterfalls around the country.
Some waterfalls have a high white-noise
quality, and others a low roar. Some wa-
terfalls have offshoots with little rivu-
lets that sound like a chorus of babbling
brooks, or even crude imitations of human
voices. I would lean over the streams and
the waterfalls with my digital recorder,
trying to capture the uniqueness of each
“foss.”
The Snæfellsnes region alone had a
flurry of sounds that I never imagined I
would be experiencing, including beauti-
ful musical instruments. The bells on the
cavernous Stykkishólmur church rang
out with a clang. The church’s small
pipe organ was one of the most warm
and welcoming I played while in Iceland.
And please don’t think I’m just wander-
ing around playing instruments that aren’t
mine. I do have a doctorate in music and
I am a keyboardist by training, so I can
make my way around some classic Icelan-
dic hymns on two manuals. Is that enough
to warrant an improvisation in a quiet
church for an audience of two road-trip
buddies? I hope so. I felt like I was paying
homage to some of these well-kept instru-
ments, a little concert for the off-season.
On the way down the mountain from
the glacier Snæfellsjökull, a picnic bench
marked the spot for Sönghellir, or “Singing
Caves.” We crawled under an overhang-
ing rock and stuck our heads into the
pitch-black darkness. Once we got over
thoughts of being cursed by the Hidden
Folk for disturbing their homes, we real-
ized that the acoustics in the space indeed
have a beautiful resonance. Anyone’s
voice sounds great in the Singing Cave—
the echo is quite impressive for such a
small space. Naturally I coerced my fellow
travellers into singing, and we recorded a
little improvisation of drones inside.
We drove to the south coast of
Snæfellsnes and stopped at Arnarstapi,
with its cute café. Here the coastline has
an interesting sound. The way the waves
recede on the polished pebbles of the
cove creates tinkling sounds, almost like
a glass wind chime, but multiplied by one
Not long ago, I was packing my travel bag into the back of
my friends’ four-wheel drive SUV as we all headed out for an
extended week navigating the Ring Road. I was somewhere
between a tourist and a resident, living in Iceland on a year-
long fellowship, and on my boss’s advice, I decided to take
my first months to sightsee before the “real work” started.
We left in October, myself (a composer) and two other Amer-
icans, an artist and her writer-poet fiancée. It was a very artsy
carful. Being a musician and very inspired by the sounds of
nature, I wanted to hear for myself all that the country had
to offer, and perhaps be inspired to make my own music in
response to my travels. I carefully squeezed my tiny Zoom
H-4 digital recorder into my coat pocket just in case anything
might sound cool enough to document, and packed a small
camera anticipating I’d take about one million pictures.
EXPLORING ICELAND,
THE FAROE ISLANDS OR GREENLAND
IT´S EASY WITH AIR ICELAND
ÞÓRSHÖFN
VOPNAFJÖRÐUR
TÓRSHAVN
ILULISSAT
ITTOQQORTOORMIIT
NUUK
KULUSUK
NARSARSUAQ
GRÍMSEY
ÍSAFJÖRÐUR
AKUREYRI
EGILSSTAÐIR
REYKJAVÍK
GREENLAND
ICELAND
FAROE ISLANDS

You can hear the results of Nathan’s field recordings and improvi-
sations on 'The Origin of the Sun and Moon,' the album he released
as a travel diary. nathan-hall.net.
Iceland’s
Sonic
Landscape
A composer’s road trip around
the country
Words & Photos Nathan Hall
Mývatn Photo Axel Sigurðarson