Anna Thorvaldsdóttir works with large sonic structures and a variety of sustained sound materials.  Her inspiration comes from listening deeply to landscapes and nature: in the case of aequlibria that inspiration came from watching the sky.  

aequilibria begins with its feet firmly on the ground, with a tonic drone shared between the bass instruments.  This groundedness is enhanced by the emergence of an occasional major chord from within a hazy texture, but overall the impression is of light, airy and airborne textures in the flute and violins. A slow progression towards a brief but arresting crescendo suggests a distant tectonic rumble.

"I am deeply inspired by nature when writing music.  I do not seek to imitate actual sounds but search for natural proportions and natural movement and flow" says Thorvaldsdóttir.  Her latest album, Aerial, has just been released on Deutsche Grammophon.

Traditional melodies collected from Nordic countries and filtered through the unique sonic imagination of MajiKer – also known as producer, composer and vocalist Matthew Ker – have been released to raise awareness and funds for nature conservation. 


The NORTH Project interprets traditional tunes and calls on the vocal skills of a particularly eclectic range of singers. Layers of harmony, vocal samples and human beatbox combine to evoke and celebrate the natural world.   

MajiKer gleaned folk melodies from Sweden, Iceland and Norway and gave them new English-language lyrics on the theme of nature, to create what he describes as “a compelling love-letter to both the Nordic folk tradition and the environment which gave birth to it”

MajiKer’s collaborators include artists as diverse as Mercury-nominated folk star Sam Lee, acclaimed jazz-soul diva China Moses, female punk choir Gaggle, Swedish singer-songwriter Jennie Abrahamson, and British vocal ensemble juice.

juice’s Kerry Andrew explained how her trio were attracted into the project.  “We were already a fan of MajiKer’s work with French experimental pop singer Camille.  We love how he created his words for Rocks of Ritual – the track we’ve contributed - by listening to the original Swedish lyrics and coming up with new English text that sounded as close to the Swedish as possible, but with a totally new meaning! He also got us to create vocal effects that you'd normally only be able to do in a studio, such as singing the tune whilst detuning over its length until we meet in the middle, which was a fun challenge!”

MajiKer explained his working methods: “each of the melodies was a folk tune from Norway, Sweden or Iceland, introduced to me by someone who had a personal or emotional connection to it.  I tried to capture the sound of the lyrics whilst writing in English.

“All the new lyrics are about the natural world, with each song evoking a different element of nature. I was imagining what these natural features would sing if they could tell us of their past; a sort of folkloric history of the landscape itself.”

Given Majiker’s success as a beatboxer, it is perhaps not surprising that every sound on the album is derived from the human voice. “I sampled guest artists and created electronic instruments of their voices which sat alongside layers of sung harmony and human beatbox – for once not by me, only by the vocalists themselves!”

It took almost four years from the first recording session to the album mastering. “I don't usually spend this long on any one project, but as I uncovered more and more beautiful folk tunes and met new artists with whom I was keen to work on NORTH, the process blossomed and sprawled into unexpected territories.  Piecing together a final tracklist was tricky, but the idea of a journey through the four seasons fitted perfectly.”

At the project's heart is a message about the beauty of nature and a plea to support its conservation.  "So the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle was the decision to work with Naturskyddsföreningen" Majiker says. "They will receive all profits from sales and streaming of the album."

To download or stream the album - click here.

On 19 August an earthquake swarm began in the vicinity of the Bárðarbunga volcano, with over 1600 earthquakes recorded in 48 hours. Yesterday Iceland issued a red alert to the aviation industry, and confirmed that a small sub-glacial eruption is under way.  On Wednesday, authorities evacuated an area close to the volcano over fears it could erupt.

In the world’s youngest – geologically speaking – country, such dramatic-sounding news is not that unusual.  Geysers, magma, glaciers and the flooding, often catastrophic, that occurs when so much ice and fire combine, are at the heart of Icelandic culture.

So it has been timely that our airwaves experienced a minor eruption of Icelandic music last week.  There is still time to catch Donald Macleod’s four-part series on Icelandic composers on iPlayer (though last Monday’s programme expires this Monday), while the Iceland Symphony Orchestra’s Proms performance is available for another four weeks.  As part of the Proms Plus literature festival, expert in Nordic sagas Eleanor Rosamond Barraclough joined novelist Joanna Kavenna to discuss Icelandic culture in a conversation that ranged from trolls and the myth of Thule to Nordic Noir, from the 19th century British visitors who included William Morris and Anthony Trollope to modern poets Glyn Maxwell and Simon Armitage.  

NATURAL LIGHT reviews the whole package in our Reviews section, which contains links to additional material exploring the inextricable link between Iceland’s dramatic natural environment and its music.