Now;
Whilst altogether right amusing and beguiling in its own right, this particular anecdote serves also to illustrate here and now the shift occurred in the world of the musicologically minded sometime around 2002, when ( ), the fourth record by the aforementioned Sigur Rós, got to capturing the imagination of anyone who'd ever spent half an hour on Pitchfork Media pretending to have heard Devendra Banhart years before they did.
What ( ) went ahead and revealed to the likes of our giddy-pill-peddler there and his fierce skeptical client, was that something right wicked exciting was going on Iceland with regards the composition of melody and the kicking of notes about a stave.
For sure, everyone with half a drum in the ears knew about Bjork, and knew that her music was as beautiful and complex and evocative as anything anyone had ever even considered going about creating, and that it was as the sighing of the angels upon the frost-stung windows of heaven, or as the twitching of a sparrow's wings 'pon a dew-kissed hedgerow of a winter's morn, or as the swelling of a neon cityscape out the belly of Arcadia. Scarcely a man, woman or child walked the Earth in ignorance of these facts, but what ( ) suggested was that other individuals hidden away in the basements of Selfoss or wandering lonesome about the shores of Keflavík were creating music of a similarly compelling, fascinating, otherworldly nature, which, if not quite as astounding as Bjork's, was at least fit to sit upon the same shelf.
Left and right and hither and thither, folks with immense cravings for sounds not unlike those of violins melting in the guts of the gods, or for melodies akin to the solemn lamentations of dying fauns choking on the fog, there and then they tuned the lugs to Iceland, and lo!, what wonders they found.
These wonders, it turns out, have since been gathered together and stacked arse-to-jowl 'tween the opening and closing of Ari Alexander Ergis Magnússon's 2005 documentary Screaming Masterpiece, or Gargandi Snilld, being an expansive, wide-reaching overview of the contemporary Icelandic music scene, released on DVD by Milan Records on the 6th of March 2007.
With Regards The Cinematic Worth Of Screaming Masterpiece
Screaming Masterpiece opens with a series of shots detailing the kinds of untouched, crystalline expanses I see back my eyes every time I talk to my good friend Maja about her homeland, being the land of Iceland, conveniently enough.
Article comments
1 - Jon Sobel
Cool, I am going to look out for this DVD that you so righteously describe. Also this might be the most awesome review of yours that my eye-holes have yet beheld. All of the legendary Duker stylations plus extreme focus.
2 - Duke De Mondo
jon, i thank you no end, and my god, just last night i was lamenting to my ladyfriend, beautiful ms gillian, that i had just submitted a review to blogcritics that may be the most nonsensical, ill-considered, pointless mess i've ever scribbled, and that i may well have some apologising to do to all concerned once the folks who sent the material get to reading it. i don't say that for to have all "oh, not at all, it rocks" etc but for to illustrate the relief i felt there now; "extreme focus"!
i really am very very suprised at that, and pleased, also. maybe i couldn't make sense of it when reading it back because i've got the flu...
either way, thank you very much, and yes, keep an eye out for the flick, it's well worth a gander, is my opinion on the matter.
3 - Duke De Mondo
jon, i just left a lengthy comment thanking you for the "extreme focus" remark, owing to how i was shittin it that this made no sense. sadly, the comment was lost to the ones and the zeroes for some reason. but thank you, was all i said really, and also, yes, keep an eye out for the flick. some astounding stuff in there.
4 - Duke De Mondo
jon, i tried a few times to say thank you, and my comments keep dissapearing, so third time lucky, thank you very much, particulary for the "extreme focus" remark, since i was wailin to my ladyfriend just last night that this was nonsense that lacked anythin approachin focus. so nice to know it made sense to you. maybe it's cause i'm used to havin NO focus, so havin some seems weird to read back. i dunno. anyhow, thank you!
5 - Aaron Fleming
Superb Duke, as always, focused AND poetic!
6 - gillian
great review, and you were stewin a bit over this. there was no need to worry; another excellent article :) xo