Publisher Description

Over the past 25 years, Icelandic music has been gaining considerable international attention. This is attested to by the international success of such acts as the Sugarcubes, and then Bjork as a solo artist, followed by the worldwide success of Sigur Ros, and more recently Of Monsters and Men. And these artists reveal themselves to be 'the tip of the iceberg', once one delves further into the music of Iceland and the myriad of genres that are thrive there. That such a small country can produce so much music of quality, value and acclaim is a fascinating situation that has boosted Icelandic tourism and made the country the 'hippest' place in the world. This is a book of wide-ranging essays on different aspects of Icelandic music, from the ancient traditional chants of rimur to the large output of classical music by nationalist composer Jon Leifs and others, to the plethora of Icelandic rock and pop groups that have already made an impact on the world as well as more idiosyncratic and genre-bending musicians now emerging from the Reykjavik music scene.

Author Biography

Thorbjorg Daphne Hall is Program Director and Assistant Professor of Musicology in the Department of Music at the Iceland Academy of the Arts in Reykjavik. She is currently completing a PhD in Music at the University of Liverpool. She has published and presented conference papers internationally on Icelandic Music and the Iceland Airwaves music festival, and received an Icelandic music award in 2007 with the group Hjaltalin for their debut album Sleepdrunk Seasons, a band whose influences range from modern indie rock to 60's pop music to classical music. She is also a member of the Iceland Academy of the Arts. Professor Nicola Dibben is the author of Bjork (Equinox Press, 2009) and co-author of Music and Mind in Everyday Life (OUP 2010). Her research into music, mind and culture has also been published in over 40 book chapters and journal articles, presented at conferences worldwide, and featured in the international media. In 2012 she collaborated with Bjork, contributing to her ground-breaking multi-media project Biophilia - the first music album to be released as a suite of apps. Professor Dibben is editor of Empirical Musicology Review, a consulting editor to Musicae Scientiae, Music Perception, and the Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies, and she co-organised the 2009 international Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology. Arni Heimir Ingolfsson holds a PhD in historical musicology from Harvard University (2003). He has held positions as Associate Professor of musicology at the Iceland Academy of the Arts and as Programme Director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. His primary area of interest is the transmission of music to and within Iceland during the 16th and 17th centuries. His CD recordings (with the Carmina Chamber Choir, which he founded) of music from Icelandic manuscripts have received outstanding reviews and various awards. He is the author of Jon Leifs: Lif i tonum (2009), a biography of Iceland's iconic national composer, also forthcoming in an English version as Jon Leifs and the Creation of Icelandic Music (Indiana University Press). He contributed to Bjork's Biophilia as writer and arranger of choir parts. Arni holds a research position at the Arni Magnusson Institute of Icelandic Studies, funded by the Icelandic Research Fund. He is currently Mellon Visiting Fellow at the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy. Tony Mitchell is honorary research associate at the University of Technology, Sydney. He is the author of Dario Fo: People's Court Jester (London: Methuen: 1999), Popular Music and Local Identity: Pop, Rock and Rap in Europe and Oceania (University of Leicester Press: 1996) and the editor of Global Noise: Rap and Hip hop outside the USA (Wesleyan University Press: 2001). He co-edited Sounds of Then, Sounds of Now: Popular Music in Australia (Australian Clearing House for Youth Studies: 2008), North meets South: Popular Music in Aotearoa/New Zealand, (Perfect Beat: 1994), and Home, Land and Sea: Situating Popular Music in Aotearoa New Zealand (Auckland: Pearson Education: 2011). He has also published numerous articles on music and film in various countries, including Iceland, and writes reviews for the Australian magazines Music Forum and Cyclic Defrost.

Table of Contents

'Introduction - Sounds Icelandic' Porbjorg Daphne Hall, Nicola Dibben, Arni Heimir Ingolfsson and Tony MitchellPart 1: Histories and Contexts1. 'A Nation without Music?': Symphonic Music and Nation-BuildingKimberly Cannady, Victoria University of Wellington, and Kristin Loftsdottir, University of Iceland2. Rimur: From National Heritage to Folk MusicRagnheidur Olafsdottir, Independent Scholar, and Nicola Dibben3. Jon Leifs and the Origins of an Icelandic StyleArni Heimir IngolfssonPart 2: Social and Spatial Structures4. Spatiality, Sociality and Circulation: Popular Music Scenes in ReykjavikNick Prior, University of Edinburgh5. Beyond Reykjavik 101: Iceland's Popular Music Mainstream and the Eurovision Song ContestSarah Baker, Griffith University6. Nurturing the roots: Musiktilraunir, Iceland's foremost "Battle of the bands" competitionArnar Eggert Thoroddsen, University of EdinburghPart 3: Scenes and Genres7. 'Even Cute Babies Will Bite When Provoked': Icelandic Popular Music and the Rise of the Krutt Porbjorg Daphne Hall8. A Transnational Bedroom Community in ReykjavikTony Mitchell9. Icelandic hip hop: From 'Selling American Fish to Icelanders' to Reykjavikurdaetur (Reykjavik Daughters)Tony MitchellPart 4: Sound and Aesthetics10. Surrealism in Icelandic Popular MusicJohn Richardson, University of Turku11. 'Imagine what my body would sound like': Embodiment, nature and sound in the work of Bjork GudmundsdottirSarah Boak, Independent Scholar12. Triangulating Timbre in Sigur Ros's IcelandBrad Osborn, University of Kansas, and David Blake, University of Akron

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