Reykjavík Grapevine - feb. 2021, Side 19

19The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 02— 2021
Event Picks
Classical darling and former
Grapevine cover star Anna
#orvaldsdóttir recently
premiered her newest orchestra work
‘CATAMORPHOSIS’ with the Berliner Phil-
harmoniker and conductor Kirill Pet-
renko. The concert was COVID-friendly,
streamed online via the orchestras
online platform Digital Concert Hall.
The inspiration for the piece revolved
around the fragile relationship human-
ity has with the Earth. There’s a sense
of urgency throughout—though it’s
unclear just what must be done to
heal or repair said fragile relation-
ship. As we are a paper that relies on
(hopefully sustainable) tree farming
to be created, we also have a fragile
relationship with the Earth. Thank you
for bringing it to life, Anna. HJC
Ya fav Icelandic musical hero Da"i
Freyr will be releasing his Eurovision
2021 song on March 13th. Da!i, as you
know, was a shoe-in for the winner last
year and it was only due to the COVID
virus—which we can only assume was
made by Israel to destroy Iceland’s
chances of splendour after Hatari
showed them up on live television—
that his glory was foiled. Thankfully, he
agreed to represent Iceland this year
as well and while “Think About Things”
was totally great, we know he will have
something even more spectacular
this year. Of course, this premier does
raise some very important questions:
What will phase three of the matching
gagnamagni! outfit trilogy look like?
Will there be choreography? How will
we celebrate our inevitable win? How
will Iceland host Eurovision 2022? Who
from the Grapevine office will take the
press pass? Cue the chaos. HJC
Kaleo really pushed socially-distanced
concerts to their breaking point in a
new live music video for “Break My
Baby” filmed at Vestmannaeyjar’s
#rídrangar lighthouse . The lighthouse
is set on a 120 foot nearly vertical cliff
face, so it’s safe to say it was a rather
isolated set. Here’s a fun historical
tidbit: construction of the lighthouse
was completed on July 5th, 1942, and
Kaleo’s performance was filmed ex-
actly 78 years later, so it’s a fitting trib-
ute to the Icelandic men and women
who risked their lives to build the it,
which would be absolutely terrifying
if you had a fear of heights. Notably,
the video was shot by Eik Studios with
Grapevine Music Award winning film-
makers Rough Cult, who we love. It is
truly an extremely impressive produc-
tion. Thank God for drones. HJC
MUSIC
NEWS
Víkingur: Debussy & Rameau
March 5th, 7th & 9th - 20:00 - Harpa -
4,900-9,900 ISK
The Grapevine swears here and
now: If this concert is once a$ain
postponed, we will do somethin$
very bad. By that, we mean we
mi$ht listen to another album that
puts le$endary composers Debussy
and Rameau in dialo$ue. Oh wait,
there isn’t one. We <3 u Víkin$ur. HJC

Páll Óskar: 50 Years!
March 4th, 5th & 6th - 20:00 -
Háskólabíó - 9,900-11,900 ISK
The Grapevine also swears here and
now: If this concert is once again
postponed, we will do something
very bad. By that, we mean we will
throw out our glittery jumpsuit and
wear boring clothing and only listen
to quiet indie music. Jk. HJC
French Film Festival
Until February 14th - Bió Paradís
French people are
alleged to be fantastic
lovers, so we assumed
they would have
prolonged the affection
past Valentine's Day.
Ah, well, the French
are also known for
confusing philosophy.
Anyway, come celebrate
the country known
for barricades, ballet
and Emmy-award
nominée ‘Emily In
Paris’ at Bíó Paradís’
French Film Days,
which are presented
in collaboration with
the French embassy,
the Alliance Française
de Reykjavík and the
Institut Français. The
program is, absolument
fantastique, but we’d
particularly recommend
‘Les Parapluies de
Cherbourg’, a musical
about an umbrella store
owner who falls in love
with a guy named Guy,
gets pregnant, marries
a rich dude and... you
know. BTW, France has
fantastic musicals—for
reference, check out “Le
temps des cathédrales”
from Notre-Dame de
Paris. That key change
tho. HJC
Our do$ Poll% (alon$ with the $atherin$ ban) ate our music listin$s pa$e
Music
Sunna Fri"jóns
& Her Spells
Forage through a dewy forest for
some magical music
Words: Hannah Jane Cohen Photo: Art Bicnick
Album
Check out ‘Let the Light in’ by Sunna
Fri!jóns on all streaming platforms.
When Sunna Fri!jónsdóttir, who
performs under Sunna Fridjóns,
approached making her newest ef-
fort ‘Let the Light in’, she says she
wanted it to sound big. “I wanted
to put some power in it, some ep-
ic-ness to the foundation and to
not be afraid to mix that with the
piano,” she explains. “I wanted to
make it plugged in but still cine-
matic, flowy, vulnerable and mys-
tical.”
But while you won’t hear dra-
matic choirs or towering percus-
sion in Sunna’s songs, she no doubt
achieved this goal. Her songs are
evocative. Full of dancing, delicate,
swaying piano and light, smooth,
tinkling vocals, each verse brings
forth delightful visions of won-
drous worlds. Her album is one
to daydream to. In fact, it’s hard
to listen to ‘Let the Light in’ with-
out being sucked into a fairytale
or medieval fable full of fairies,
sprights, heroes and the monsters
that lurk in the shadows.
A wake-up call
Sunna’s background is primarily in
flute. While she studied both piano
and flute formally as a child, by the
time she was a teenager, she chose
to stick with the woodwind and
eventually went to university for it.
“I had a wake-up call at uni-
versity where I realised that that
wasn’t what I wanted. I never fit
in the classical music industry.
Everything had to be done a cer-
tain way,” Sunna explains. “Many
people thrive in that and that’s
really cool but I didn’t see a way
I could be totally me and go that
route.”
That said, she loved playing
and had been singing and making
songs all her life, so it felt natural
to shift her musical passion into
songwriting. “There was more
ease, more joy—more fun there,”
she says.
She explains that due to this
new outlook on performance, she
began to really connect to the pi-
ano again, which led to the devel-
opment of the Sunna Fri!jóns pro-
ject.
“There is just a lot of music that
wants to come out of me,” she says
softly. “I love to do something dif-
ferent, write a different song, just
do whatever is fun at the moment.
Follow whatever intrigues me and
inspires me.”
The witch &
her potion
As you might ex-
p ec t f rom her
music, a lot of
Sunna’s inspira-
tions come from
fantasies. In fact,
the first time we
played the album
at the Grapevine
office, it sparked a debate on which
universe her album existed in. I
chose ‘The Lady of Shalott.’
“Some people are really good
at painting a picture with words,
but it’s hard to do that with your
own music, you’re so far in it,” she
notes. “But what people always tell
me is that they have these visions
of forests and mystical natural
vibes.”
These visions are particularly
poignant in “Inni í skugganum,”
a flowing, earthy track, which be-
came an early favourite upon first
listen. The first three minutes
feel straight out of a poem—I im-
agined a solemn sorceress tip-toe-
ing through a dewy forest forag-
ing ingredients for her next spell;
mushrooms from the creek, herbs
from under a willow, a single fallen
feather from a dove.
But then, at three minutes, it’s
time to brew the potion, whose
magical reaction grows bigger and
bigger until it bursts forth into a
larger-than-life unrelentingly
beautiful piano breakdown. It’s a
spine-tingling uncharacteristical-
ly harsh moment from Sunna that
actually spurred on one of those
rare times where I re-started a
song mid-listen to hear it again. A
sacrilegious move, but one that felt
necessary. Of course, by the end,
the intensity of the spell has abated
into the flowing breeze of the be-
ginning. The effects of the reaction
remain unknown—only the witch
knows.
“I remember, there came so
much power at that moment and I
thought, well, it’s kind of like piano
rock,” Sunna says. “It was experi-
mental. We were knocking on the
wood of the instruments, pluck-
ing. There were effects on the bass
and distortion. It was so fun,” She
smiles; her eyes crinkling at the
edges.
‘Let the Light in’ ends with
“Melt,” a song whose last calming
minute slowly brings you out of
Sunna’s fantasy and into the real
world. Amazingly, it’s not a jar-
ring shift—you’d
expect leaving
somewhere so
lovely would be.
No, instead, you
can’t help but
feel a bit giddy
as the sounds
f a d e a w a y — a
tad lighter, a bit
more innocent.
And as it fades
to silence, I can’t
help but think that perhaps that’s
the spell the witch cast.
“What people
always tell me is
that they have
these visions of
forests and mysti-
cal natural vibes.”
Not pictured: Sunna's cauldron