Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Bjarni Gunnarsson, 'Processes and Potentials'.

Talking about Icelandic music. This is an excerpt from 'Processes and Potentials', the new Bjarni Gunnarsson album on 3Leaves. Bjarni is one half of the duo Einóma, who released some very distinctive yet quite obscure albums the last 10 years. Releases by Einóma have become a bit scarser lately, but the two members have been working on their solo projects for a while now. Bjarni did some great audiovisual stuff with Cedric Dupire lately. 'Processes and Potentials' could be the nonlinear & experimental core sound of Einóma, but unwilling to give in to anything you ever heard before. It's excellent: full of grainy textures & microsounds that flitter all over the place. The detailed meticulous sound reminded me a bit of Rashad Becker's recent, appraised album on PAN. It is maybe even more singleminded. Standout tracks are 'Momentaries', firmly held together by some kind of deep drone & 'Concomitance' with it's metallic dehumanized voices at the end. I still haven't absorbed everything. Have to listen again a couple of times. Bjarni's 'music' is demanding & extremely complicated. But for me this is definitely one of the best experimental albums of this year. Out on October 1rst.