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LP
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HVALUR 008LP
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Valgeir Sigurðsson's 2010 release Draumalandið is now finally being released on 12" vinyl. Iceland's Sigurðsson has made his name as an exponent of musical subtlety. As an engineer and producer, he's often focused on the intimate, the miniature. On his solo debut Ekvílibríum (HVALUR 003CD/LP), his songwriting and composition tended towards the muted or the oblique. His best-known work is punctuated with question marks and ellipses, and the rare exclamation point. But this is only one side of his musical capabilities. Draumalandið (trans. "Dreamland"), a documentary about the exploitation of Iceland's natural resources, tells a story about huge things -- the fortunes of a whole nation; the destruction of vast landscapes; and the global economic forces, greater still than any nation, that fuel it all -- and for his soundtrack to the film, Valgeir has brought out a heavier set of tools. His entire roster of Bedroom Community label-mates contributes in some way to the creation of the score: classical composers Nico Muhly and Daníel Bjarnason, industrial wizard Ben Frost, and American folksinger Sam Amidon, along with a host of others, and the small orchestra assembled for the record swells from moments of expansive beauty into massive, surging symphonic force. Valgeir's score makes fierce and direct statements of sorrow and indignation, but it also expresses, with a kind of hushed awe, the beauty of landscapes on the brink of devastation, and the seductive shimmer of the illusions that imperil them. Heard as an accompaniment to the film, the Draumalandið score can disappear into the images and the narrative. Listened to on its own, it rewards close attention: for the subtle interconnections between the movements, for their cumulative emotional force, and simply as a series of meticulously-scored and recorded musical moments, urgent meditations on the natural sublime.
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