Reykjavík Grapevine - 16.06.2016, Síða 41

Bára Gísladóttir is a young Icelan-
dic composer. Her album 'Different
Rooftops' was released earlier this
year and she has been busy since.
This summer she will be touring
with New York’s TAK Ensemble,
performing her own pieces, and
with the Errata artist collective.
She’ll also be travelling to Sweden
for the Holland Opera Festival with
Elektra Ensemble and Elísabet Ein-
arsdóttir, performing pieces by Er-
rata Collective as well. Now, she’s
working on an orchestra piece for
the Helsingborg Symphony Or-
chestra and the Danish National
Symphony Orchestra, and if that
weren’t enough, she’ll be perform-
ing at Iceland Airwaves, releasing a
new album, and publishing a book
of visual art and sheet music.
We asked Bára to name five al-
bums that have had an impact on
her life.

Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson - ‘Þorkell’
This album is one of my absolute
favourites. The album features
many of the best Icelandic choir
compositions by one of my favou-
rite composers, Þorkell Sigurb-
jörnsson. His compositions are
performed by my old choir, Ham-
rahlíðarkórinn. I have listened to
and performed these songs count-
less times and yet always want
more.

Moses Hightower - ‘Búum til börn’
Definitely one of the best releases
in the history of Icelandic music. I
love every single detail of this su-
per satisfying sound world. Their
second album ‘Önnur Mósebók’ is
in fact just as fantastic as the first
one, but the feeling of the discovery
of ‘Búum til börn’ simply cannot be
replaced. In addition to this, Moses
Hightower contains some of Ice-
land’s most prominent musicians,
and consequently performs some of
the most extraordinary gigs.

Sigur Rós - ‘Ágætis byrjun’
Even though I stopped listening
to this some while ago, I feel that
I’m obliged to put ‘Ágætis byrjun’
on my Top 5, considering how ob-
sessed I was with it for years. I got
hooked on the album around the
time I was first realising I would
simply have to work within the
field of music. Its pieces encour-
aged me in the most positive way
in my early development as a musi-
cian/composer.
Mugison - ‘Mugiboogie’
I hated this album at first! It caused
a lot of disappointment, because at
the time my musical taste spanned
approximately 3 cm² and I disliked
everything I found out of control.
I had really gotten my hopes up
for this album, since ’Mugimama
Is This Monkeymusic?’ was one of
my favourite albums at the time.
In some fucked-up stubbornness I
couldn’t let the album just go, so I
repeatedly listened to it every day,
trying to find what annoyed me so
much. Before I had any concrete
answers, the album had become
my all-time favourite obsession.
This process helped me loosen up
and probably has a lot to do with
my urge to always go further and
to push the boundaries in all my
compositions and performances.
Thanks Mugison!

Björk - ‘Volta’
DON’T MAKE ME CHOOSE BE-
TWEEN BJÖRK’S ALBUMS
WRARRRRGHH!
ANYWAY, IT’S PROBABLY ‘VOLTA’
AND I DON’T KNOW WHY!
LISTEN AND SHARE: gpv.is/silla
Top Five Discography
“I hated this album at first!”
Bára Gísladóttir's
Five Favorite Albums
Words HREFNA BJÖRG GYLFADÓTTIR Photo ART BICNICK
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