HÖFNIN HLJÓMAR - Icelandic Electronic Music Sampler

This review is written by someone who does not have a clue about how electronic music is created. Electronic musicians seem to create by staring intently into computer screens and they do get bad backs from bending over their equipment on tables that are too low, when performing.

Höfnin Hljómar is actually a great album to listen to in one go. Compilations of different artists are seldom a listening pleasure simply because the listener does have a taste for music and not all the artists included are that great, but with Höfnin Hljómar that is not the case.

Reptilicus go all Kraftwerkian in their “It's lovely to be Appreciated” - a strong and deep track, full of drive like when hurrying through a airport to be the last one checking in. Their collaboration with Auxpan, a excerpt from a live recording (that hopefully will be released in its entirety) is more of a Lovecraftian walk through a old graveyard. On his own track for this compilation, Auxpan fastened a few thousand nanomicrophones to the feet of worker ants in a busy hill. The track is based on those field recordings but with so many busy ants walking over the listener, the track - “Trade Intensity” turns into a drone. Jóhann Eríksson is the busiest man on this CD, being half of Reptilicus, Gjöll and all of himself. His solo track - “Innerclock” is arguably the most fun track on the album; A happy simple beat joined by various forms of droning clocklike sounds, rising and flowing and pushing each other away.
Björk Viggósdóttir rocks out all in reverse in her magnifying collage of electronics that sound like they are escaping the space they shortly occupy as fast as they can, the collage is led on by whirling guitar improvisations. Inside Bilderberg flows smoothly with a soft beat supporting chilled ambience, as do Stereo Hypnosis, floating on clouds with a soft breeze caressing the eardrums. Former screaming noise terrorist, AMFJ, has gone all soft on us through fatherhood (unconditional love will do that to you) but delivers a great drone ballett that will make his noise fans proud. Jónas Sen takes us back to the early years of electronic music with his track, “Mephisto” which reminds me of Jean Michel-Jarre, fantastic keyboard adventure that can take the attentive listener to faraway worlds.
Painter and performance artist Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson shares with us a Undiscovered Modern Classic in his digital travel through shivering man's metallic nightmare. Þóranna Björnsdóttir has a love affair with Rachmaninoff, here taking one note from some of his work and stretching it into a beautifully ambient drone piece recorded through layers of thick fog. Another exceptionally beautiful piece is “the Raven” from Þorkell Atlason, only slightly melancholy in its simplicity. Rúnar Magnússon is darker, his “Let it Be” is a deep and strong current, a meditation that for my taste could have gone on for hours.

As I said in the beginning this is one of those seldom heard compilations that has a wholeness to it. Even though the artists differ in sound and style the overall feel of it is variations on the same theme: Good electronic music. [Yatra Arts]
- Sigurður Harðarson