AUGA Gyda Valtysdottir & Úlfur Hansson

• Úlfur Hansson (b. 1988), Gyda Valtysdottir (b. 1982): ESTERS:
• 1 Hansson, Valtysdottir: ESTERS 08:50
• VOLVELLE:
• 2 Hansson, Valtysdottir: VOLVELLE 08:18
• ONIUM ION:
• 3 Hansson, Valtysdottir: ONIUM ION 08:22
• IMINE:
• 4 Hansson, Valtysdottir: IMINE 10:52
• SINTRA:
• 5 Hansson, Valtysdottir: SINTRA 08:50
• PETRICHOR:
• 6 Hansson, Valtysdottir: PETRICHOR 09:10
• VACUUM:
• 7 Hansson, Valtysdottir: VACUUM 06:57
• THE END:
• 8 Hansson, Valtysdottir: THE END 08:32
• STILL BLUE:
• 9 Hansson, Valtysdottir: STILL BLUE 08:16
• Total Runtime 01:18:07

Info zu AUGA

R-O-R refers to the chemical compound ether, when two elements come together to create entirely different matter. This ethereal compound also gives its name to the collaboration between Icelandic musicians Gyða Valtýsdóttir and Úlfur Hansson, whose new album AUGA brings together the two musicians in a unique new work of cosmic alchemy.

On AUGA the two musicians combine like electrons to create an expansive sound-world that feels like entering the landscape of a dream. The elements here are both earthly and alchemical: evocations of rain, geology, wind entangle with the oneiric and celestial. Úlfur’s self-made synthesiser soars and segues with sparkling harmonic threads of Gyða’s cello, creating a tapestry in which matter entwines with a luminous sense of the spectral.

AUGA is a new direction borne from a long history of collaboration between the two. Both have worked on each other’s previous solo projects, with Gyða playing cello on Úlfur´s album Arborescens, and Úlfur working on arrangements and production for Gyða’s albums Evolution and Ox. A deeper collaboration began, however, when Gyða and Úlfur created the Icelandic Music Award nominated track ‘Morphogenesis’ for Gyða’s album Epicycle II. Partly created out of improvisation and partly composed in writing, and appropriately named ‘Morphogenesis’ for the biological process that causes an organism to develop its shape, this explorative collaborative process set the path for the deeply symbiotic creation of AUGA.

The resulting album is an elemental dreamscape of long-form music informed by the astral and eternal. The music made between the two has the quality of a kind of primordial plasma, with contours of melodies arising from thin air and swiftly shapeshifting into whorls of formlessness. On ‘Petrichor’, a track named for the scent of falling rain, a dew-drop string melody merges with the geological bedrock drones of Úlfur’s synthesizer. Elsewhere, the chemical evocations of tracks like ‘Esters’ and ‘Onium Ion’ take us on a spectral atomic journey through hydrogen and halogen, and the deep tremors of ‘Vacuum’ transport us through a sense of expansive geological deep-time.

Speaking about the collaboration, Gyða says; ROR is a realm which I love entering. When me and Úlfur improvised for the first time together many years ago, we immediately went to this place, which was so clear, strong and familiar; like it had always been there, right behind the veil, and we were simply finding it again. I could never go there by myself, but when our tones met, we went there instantly. I love this realm, it is timeless, colourful and textural – a poetry of pure vibration.

The music of R-O-R is a hologram made from two different beams of expression, forming a whole where sometimes neither instrument can be differentiated from the other. Carbon, silicon, horse hair and wood melt into one projection; a wormhole where both image and form, emptiness and void emerge in a dance of opposites. Gestures echoing into one another. AUGA is an ever evolving nebula of sound.

Gyda Valtysdottir, cello
Úlfur Hansson, synthesizer

Gyda Valtysdottir
has been active as a musician since her early teens as a founding member of the experimental pop-group múm.

Classically trained, Gyda has made music for films, theater & dance, among many other creative ventures, possessing a rare range of musical experiences which creates a unique alchemical compound.

Her music emerges from the fluidity of time & genres, dissolving any boundaries by simply not sensing their existence.

Her cello playing always inventive and highly personal, underlines a dignified craftsmanship while flirting with sensitivity & strength.

Her list of collaborators is extensive & includes a wide palette of musician & other artist including Kronos Quartet, Aaron & Bryce Dessner, Josephine Foster, Damien Rice, Dustin O´Halloran, Colin Stetson, Kjartan Sveinsson & visual artist Ragnar Kjartansson, just to name few

Gyda received the prestigious Nordic Council Music Price 2019 for her music & performance, calling her distinct vocals & instrumental inventiveness ”highly unique & captivating”.

Her first solo album Epicycle came out in 2017 & received prestigious prizes at the Iceland Music Awards. Epicycle is a constellation of written music spanning from ancient to avant garde. A year later she released her first album with her own work called Evolution. The record was nominated for the Nordic Music Prize & won “album of the year” at the Icelandic Music Awards. Same year, her first movie soundtrack came out on the legendery Smekkleysa label & was nominated as the soundtrack of the year both at the Icelandic Music Award & EDDA, the Icelandic Film Award & the Nordic Film Composer.

In 2020 her third solo album Epicycle II came out on her own label DiaMond, which is a “genre-fluid” ode to collaboration & interconnection. On the album is a Gyða works with musicians who shaped her musical journey, such as; Sigurrós members Kjartan Sveinsson & Jónsi, who also mixed the album, composers Anna Thorvaldsdottir & Daníel Bjarnason & other of Iceland most unique creatives.

Her fourth solo album Ox came out late 2021. It is both visceral & wildly sublime transcendental dance between inner & outer realms of existence, With its rich arrangements & intricate soundscapes, it celebrates the embodiment of both darkness & light trough open-heartness which gives birth to writing that bursts with effortless originality.

Dieses Album enthält kein Booklet