At the risk of getting doxxed by my musician colleagues, I’m going to divulge a dark truth about classical music: it’s never as captivating or molecule-altering for anyone as it is for us on stage.

Which is why I often find classical records, especially those of the orchestral persuasion, so underwhelming. So not...immediate. Which is why I am approaching zealot status in my admiration for Sono Luminus and the way in which it submerges listeners within reach of the Atlantis that is the on-stage experience. Which is why, save for live performance, the often inimitable new-music originating in, or in proximity to, Iceland (homeland to an unreasonable percentage of the composers living rent-free in my headphones for more than a decade) has found its most ardent advocate and most clarion amplifier in Winchester, Virginia. Certainly its exceptional national orchestra has.

Despite a bewildering insistence by journalists to characterize music written by those with Icelandic surnames as a monolith, the entries on this tracklist are as singular as hand blown glass. The inclusion of American sonic clairvoyant Missy Mazzoli is a helpful geographic foil here, but there is one element fusing all of these inventions: Your

person is about to feel minuscule or massive, by contrast to – or motivated by – these sounds.

Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s music is often intimidatingly cyclopean, and Catamorphosis at times mimics the cosmic indifference of Lovecraft- ian deities, but it simultaneously introduces an iridescent hope I have not encountered before in her music. Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) catapults us from one end of a pulsing solar system to the other while Daníel Bjarnason’s From Space I Saw Earth improbably stretches perspective from earth to the moon and back, seeming somehow both terrestrial and paranormal within a single phrase. Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir’s Clockworking bridges a similar expanse, coexisting within the measurable realm of time-keeping...and the immeasurable realm of what occurs as the seconds tick by. Is Bára Gísladóttir’s ÓS gasping in air, or desperately exhaling? Whatever your observation, and as with every waypoint on this illusory itinerary, the answer is likely: both.

– Doyle Armbrust

Anna Thorvaldsdottir
1       CATAMORPHOSIS   [21:18]

Missy Mazzoli
2        Sinfonia (for  Orbiting Spheres)

Daníel Bjarnason
3        From Space I Saw Earth

María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir
4       Clockworking for Orchestra

Bára Gísladóttir
5       ÓS

Total time: 58:57
Release date: April 28, 2022
UPC: 053479226709

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Quotes & Reviews

“This is enthralling music, but challenging, beginning with a foreboding series of glitterings and glissandos…. As the piece progresses, the sounds grow more definitive, even accessible, the percussion almost leading to euphoria yet retracting once more…. “ - A Closer Listen

“massively interesting album. The album opens with Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s CATAMORPHOSIS – a 21- minute work that had its world premiere by the Berlin Philharmonic in January of 2021.” - Craig Byrd, Cultural Attache

“ Amorphous, nebulous, chaotic, obscure and at times even disquieting or unsettling, are some of the descriptive adjectives one could ascribe to most of these compositions…. Recorded using 24 bit DXD technology, the immersive audio quality allows you to hear even the finest details within this cosmological ocean of sonic effulgence.” - Jean-Yves Duperron, Classical Music Sentinel

‘‘ Kudos to Sono Luminus for putting together an appealing program of contemporary music, recorded in vivid, full-range sound… If future volumes in this series live up to the high standard set by this release, then we are in for quite a treat indeed!” - Karl Nehring, Classical Candor

“the high definition the label's engineers achieve in the Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavik will repay high-end stereo investment. An orientation toward the general modern Icelandic style will be helpful here, but this is an unusually nice example, and one looks forward to future releases in the series.” - James Manheim, AllMusic

“The music at times plays like the slow, heaving movements of an enormous geological mass. All five works are immersive and dynamic creations, yet there are critical differences between them, something Bjarnason emphasizes in asserting that each of the five is ‘as singular as hand-blown glass.’” - Ron Schepper, Textura

“The subtle colors of this work are well defined by the orchestra under Bjarnason’s truly expert guidance but also via the sonics that the Sono Luminus engineers are able to capture. This sounds like a difficult work to perform but Bjarnason manages to create a definitive performance and Sono Luminus’ sonics are, as always first rate.” - Allan J. Cronin, New Music Buff

“The performances on the recording are outstanding and played with great virtuosity, especially from the percussion group and stunning playing from the violins and woodwind under the direction of Daniel Bjarnason, and in the latter’s piece we hear three ensembles directed by three different conductors. The recordings are state-of-the-art, and the release offers alternative versions on a Blu-ray and on CD with high-quality sound. The best of these performances is available on the Blu-ray disc.  … This is a very enjoyable recording and obligatory for followers of Icelandic music and to aficionados of contemporary music.” - Gregor Tassie, MusicWeb International

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