“Textures in, and around, Reykjavík” (Sept 2023)

(Minolta SRT-200 + CineStill 400D)

We were immediately driven to Gunnuhver Hot Springs, to film b-roll, after we landed in at Keflavík in Iceland. The documentary I was there to work on, however, fell to background noise once I heard the hiss and gurgle of a hot spring. Monstrous, vividly alive, a threat, and a beauty. It was that  monent that my long time appreciation for Björks music deepened.

Sigubjörn Bernhardsson, a violinist, relays Björk’s vision for her album, Homogenic, in a YouTube documentary, Björk: Making of Homogenic. Bernhardsson says, “There are certain Icelandic composers, and when they compose Icelandic music they try to imitate geysers or volcanoes, because the landscape in Iceland is very rough… we barely have any trees… there are a lot of outbursts of weather. Suddenly the wind comes, or snow storms…”  He continued on to say that those “…raw” sounds are what Björk was looking for in the production of the album. As a focused listener of her music, and a foreigner to the land she calls home, I find that those sounds live in the entirety of her discography. Strings and horns to hollowing winds, synths to hot springs, percussion to eruptions, Björk’s voice to Icelands geological adolescence. The photos here, I believe showcase the rich physical textures of Iceland. Textures that can actually be heard within any of Björk’s many songs. 

While the song “Lionsong” by Björk is primarily about her dealing with an emotionally unstable partner, it is a perfect example of how she masters texture. Its robust instrumentation, arranged with precision, in combination with the utter control she has over the dynamics of her voice, in my eyes, breathe the essence of Icelandic nature.