SILVA is a work for processed double bass built on the idea of a downward growing forest, living its own secret life of underground raves and meditative cohesiveness. 

I like to think of different movement and direction in the musical form and was intrigued by the thought of something that would otherwise naturally grow upwards, in reach for light and surrounded by air, rather being drawn in the opposite direction where darkness and solid form serve as the source of gleaming luminosity and breezy surroundings. 

Both in my compositional and instrumentalist work, in every nook and cranny I’ve been driven to dig as deep as I’ve been able, with SILVA perhaps quite literally so. Although growing up in classical music and predominantly working and living in an environment of classical contemporary/avant garde music, I’ve been very much into other genres as well; alternative, experimental, heavy metal, noise, drone, techno, and electronica, and I believe SILVA is the byproduct of all of that.

Every sound on SILVA is of the double bass, processed to various degrees (w. MAX/Live) and layered into a mass of noise.

Total time: 57:36
Release date: January 27, 2023
UPC: 053479702920 / 825481508124

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Quotes & Reviews

“It is underpinned by a deep, almost hollow reverberation – an abyss the composer holds no fear of plunging into and then working her way out of towards a sort of aerated plateau (or, at least, a horizon) that proves the work’s destination. Again, we hear the animal inside Gísladóttir’s growling double bass… and there are elements of metal and noise music present in a monolith whose throbbing is (almost) consistently rooted by a pedal of sorts, which the music bends tonally on and off. Whatever this brutalist monologue is, it’s intensely focused, structured with compositional discipline and a musical soul.” - Andrew Mellor, Gramophone

“…the recording is an uncompromising plunge into electroacoustic brutalism that pulls into its orbit elements of noise, drone, electronica, and heavy metal… Electronic treatments engulf the instrument with rippling percolations until the mass begins to feel like the beginnings of a volcanic eruption. Churning rhythms lend the performance a woozy, almost stupefied quality custom-made to induce grogginess and entrancement. Undergirded by a throbbing bass, the music continues as a grinding howl, a raw, keening, and blustery behemoth that seethes and convulses for fifty-seven minutes. Melody is downplayed, the emphasis instead on texture, dynamics, and unfiltered expression. Rising to the surface of the whole, the bowing resembles the strangulated wail of an animal, even sometimes a whale's cry; the distortion-heavy sound mass heaving alongside it, on the other hand, grinds like an overdriven engine belching black smoke…. It's probably safe to say nothing else quite like SILVA exists at the Sono Luminus store or in Gísladóttir's discography… there's no denying its power.” - Ronn Schepper, Textura

“The 57-minute SILVA is a powerful and suggestive composition that extends, processes and manipulates the timbral palette of the double bass to new and surprising terrains and transforms the instrument into a vivid and tangible entity. It also reflects Gísladóttir’s inclusive sonic vision, experimenting with elements of contemporary music, metal, noise, drone, techno, and electronica.“ - Eyal Hareuveni, The Free Jazz Collective

“a work that demonstrates superb control of activity and passivity, together with a telling sense of perspective, in terms of both near and far as well as left to right across the stereo field… Bára Gísladóttir’s ability to take a relatively simple palette of timbres and ideas and weave such an extensive, ever-changing tapestry as this is genuinely masterful. That really shouldn’t come as a surprise by this stage, but SILVA is breathtaking nonetheless…” - Simon Cummings, 5against4

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