Hekla - Turnar - VINYL LP

Acclaimed Icelandic theremin musician Hekla returns with Turnar, her third album of devastatingly heavy, spectral soundscape-songwriting, entering a sublime paranormal plane of haunting dread. Now augmenting her virtuosic solo theremin work with cello, voice, and the sacred church organ of Icelandic master Kristján Hrannar, the evolution of Hekla's unique magic summons new worlds with Turnar. The album was recorded partly in (and named after) a medieval castle tower in rural France, it's ruinous black broken in spare beams of angelic stained-glass light. But, writes Hekla, Inchthe sound of theremin kind of opens up a portal into a new realm that both looks into a dark old world and to the future.Inch The record is an alternately beautiful and crushing space voyage into a glacial underworld cascading with phosphorescence and cave drip, conjuring ancient choral ritual just as readily as redolent sci-fi gloam. Opener InchInniInch begins with swooning and shimmering lines of theremin that shiver with electrified energy before subfrequency bass elevates them into a glowing plasma, hovering above a crystallised surf. Key moment InchGráminnInch wails with ghostly harmonics while distorted drones crash together in a stormy and blackened netherworld sea. It traces a neat progression from Hekla's last album - the acclaimed Xiuxiuejar - while also welcoming an expanded timbral palette and flourishing compositional confidence. At the end of side A, InchVarInch delicately places sonic artefacts about a desolate negative space, creating a dense inverse gravity. As with the rest of the record, a claustrophobic gauze hangs over music that could otherwise be called subverted songwriting, aligning Hekla's sonics with avant-garde, musique concréte and sound-art. Album Tracks 1. Inni 2. Kyrrð 3. Ókyrrð 4. Var 5. Í Ösku Og Eldi 6. Ólga 7. Gráminn 8. Flækjur