The Boarder Crossing: Best of the year, so far:
"Copenhagen-based Icelandic noise merchant, bassist and composer Bára Gísladóttir released a gorgeous solo album in April, Silva, which unfolds hypnotically. We were lucky enough to be at the album launch night, in a Reykjavik rock club where the sound system could barely cope with Bára’s immense bass frequencies."
"Highlights: The Icelandic Symphony Orchestra performing the above praised Bára Gísladóttir’s astonishing double-bass concerto ‘Hringla’ in Reykjavik’s Harpa Hall as part of Mykir Musikdagar (Dark Music Days) festival, which, after going twice, is now my favourite music festival in the world."
5:4 on SILVA:
"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.
Morgunblaðið/Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen on SILVA:
"Ég hlustaði hátt og þetta var ótrúlegt eins og venjulega. Þvílík listakona sem Bára Gísladóttir er og ég þreytist aldrei á að breiða út boðskapinn. Kannið þessa tónlist, helst í gær, á öllum þeim veitum og vettvöngum sem þið hafið aðgang að."
"I listened with a loud volume and it was incredible as usual. What an artist Bára Gísladóttir is - I never get tired of preaching the word. Check out this music, preferably yesterday, on all platforms available to you."
The Free Jazz Collective on SILVA:
"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."
Textura on SILVA:
"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."
Berlin Art Link on Animals of your pasture:
"A combination of meditative and chaotic was Bára Gísladóttir’s ‘Animals of your Pasture’ (2021) played by London’s Riot Ensemble. It climaxed in the droning roar of an electric guitar, while the flute and clarinet seemed to flutter above and even puncture its thickly textured vibration. Electric guitars featured in multiple pieces this year and their presence seemed surprising, even quaint, an instrument both out of date and comically futuristic."
Gramophone: Double review on VÍDDIR and SILVA:
"Whatever this brutalist monologue is, it’s intensely focused, structured with compositional discipline and a musical soul."
The Moderns on SILVA:
“We may already have heard the best album of 2023.”
Seismograf on SILVA:
“Bedre mindes jeg ikke at have hørt Bára Gísladóttir: så fokuseret og alligevel hengiven, fri; tilmed i en overrumplende optagelse, der indfanger dybets tonerigdom”
"I don't recall having heard Bára Gísladóttir better than this: so focused and yet so affectionate, free; even in a surprising recording, that captures the sonic richness of the depth."
Bára Gísladóttir shortlisted for the RPS Awards for Animals of your pasture.
5:4 - VÍDDIR, album of the year:
"...VÍDDIR is a unique, incredible experience, and without any doubt the best album of 2022."
The New Yorker/Alex Ross: Notable Performances and Recordings of 2022:
Notable recordings of the year: VÍDDIR by Bára Gísladóttir.
Morgunblaðið/Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen on VÍDDIR:
"Þetta er svo fokk kreisí verk. Svo þungt ... en svo fallegt ... og carnal geðveiki ... eitthvað algert innsta kjarna dæmi sem er í gangi líka. Ég eiginlega læsist alltaf þegar ég hlusta á Báru. Hún er algerlega einstök.“
"...í gegnum tónlist Báru hef ég upplifað slíkar drunur, hávaða og brjálæði að ég er ekki bara kominn á bríkina, ég er búinn að éta af mér allar neglurnar líka! En um leið – og hér er þessi óskapagaldur – finn ég svo djúpa og gegnheila fegurð að ég klökkna. Fegurðin er svo umlykjandi, svo sönn og svo stingandi að ég grét á meðan ég og meðdómari minn kynntum Norðurlandaráðsdómnefndinni verkið."
"This piece is so fucking crazy. So heavy ... but so beautiful ... and carnal insanity ... some total innermost core stuff going on as well. I sort of get locked every time I listen to Bára. She is absolutely unique."
"Through Bára's music I have experiences such drones, loudness and craziness that I'm not only feeling on the edge, I've eaten of all my fingernails as well! Simultaneously - and this is were the magic lyes - I feel such a deep and whole beauty that I am brought to tears. The beauty is so embracing, so true and so stinging that I cried while my co-judge and I introduces the piece to the Nordic Council."
5:4 on VÍDDIR:
“…it’s hands down one of the most unique, special, haunting and above all stunning pieces of music i’ve heard all year.”
Andrew Mellor in conversation with Bára Gísladóttir on VÍDDIR.
The Strad - Ones to watch: Five up-and-coming bass players:
"Bára Gísladóttir Icelandic composer and double bassist based in Copenhagen She recently performed her first double bass concerto, Hringla (‘Circle’), with the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra. She often writes for herself as soloist, such as on her 2017 album Mass for Some, comprising a piece in nine movements for double bass, voice and electronics."
Bára Gísladóttir nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize for VÍDDIR.
Politiken on Hringla:
"Gísladóttir, der bor og arbejder med København som base, viste, at hun med sin uhyggelige konsekvens og klanglige opfindsomhed, er en af tidens mest interessante komponister."
'Gísladóttir showed, with her eerie consequence and sonic ingenuity, that she is one of our time's most interesting composers'
5:4 on Animals of your pasture:
"Everything about it was elemental, eternal, indomitable."
Music Web International on Caeli:
"Caeli is all-encompassing and astonishing in a literal sense; at once it can be monolithic and elastic, dark and luminous, purposeful and daydreaming, bold and terrified, triumphant and sad. It’s all on these discs. Believe me."
Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen um Caeli:
"Plata ársins gerið svo vel, ekki ein einasta spurning. Ég get ekki ímyndað mér að betur verði gert á næstu mánuðum. Tja, nema Bára sjálf hlaði í annað verk."
Textura on Caeli
"...the recording by Gísladóttir and Sverrisson is all about soundscapes birthed live. Texture trumps melody in their pieces, Gísladóttir largely bowing her instrument and coaxing from it a guttural wealth of creaks, groans, and wails, and with Sverrisson augmenting her with enveloping washes and tempestuous rumblings, the two generate an immense, billowing force-field."
Bára Gísladóttir receives a three year working grant from the Danish Arts Foundation
Best of Bandcamp Contemporary Classical: April 2021
5:4 on Caeli
"...Caeli is the most compelling new music i’ve heard so far this year."
Headphone Commute on Caeli
“This is a two-hour double-disc composition of some of the darkest, brooding, border-line terrifying and absolutely gorgeous music that I’ve heard.”
I care if you listen: 5 questions to Bára Gísladóttir
5:4 about HĪBER
'Most stunning of all is the peculiar kind of tension exhibited in ‘cusp day’, where Bára’s by now familiar palette of squally overtones are seemingly held in check by some invisible force, gently hinted at by the electronics in such a way – omnipresent but defiantly undemonstrative – that they sound almost numinous. Yet over time it transpires that the bass and electronics aren’t simply discrete but integrated elements, not so much one within (and separate from) the other as one being interpenetrated and suffused by the other.'
AnEarful about HĪBER
'If you fell in love with the sharp sound of Saariaho's cello on Cendre's, you will be enraptured by Gísladóttir's blazingly brilliant song cycle for double bass and electronics. Taking her instrument to the limit, with whispering harmonic highs and grinding lows, she creates a universe that pulls you in from the start.'
Seismograf
'A single work was on the programme at Icelandic composer Bára Gísladóttir’s debut concert in Copenhagen. ‘Víddir’, a 60-minute composition of light and darkness, demonstrated the breadth of her imagination.-
POLITIKEN
"Hun tror fuldt og fast på apokalypsen. Det er noget rock and roll over hende. Noget Nick Cave-agtigt."
'She fully believes in the apocalypse. There's something rock and roll about her. Something Nick Cave-like.'
POLITIKEN
"Komponisten Bára Gísladóttir ... viste nu ... hvor mareridtsagtigt og suverænt hun kan skrive noder i værket ’Music to accompany your sweet splatter dreams’. En sindssyg oplevelse, der satte kroppen i alarmberedskab."
"The composer Bára Gísladóttir showed how night mare-like and supremely she can write notes with the piece ’Music to accompany your sweet splatter dreams’. An insane experience, that set the whole body in alert."
Bára Gísladóttir published by Edition·S
"The works of Bára Gísladóttir are characterised by a deep and self-reflective calm, at times producing an almost meditative state in the music. In her pieces, time is as likely to move in circles as it is moving forwards towards a distinct goal."
The Reykjavík Grapevine
"Listen Carefully: Bára Gísladóttir & Skúli Sverrisson’s Collaborative Bass Odyssey"
Interview with Seismograf
"We’re in a place now where the world is opening up. But it’s opening up because we’re in a desperate situation. There is no hope for life – we have ruined the planet. It’s going to be a slow, Alzheimer’s-style end. But very interesting things can happen in these situations because it can create extreme empathy and compassion, especially in the creative scene. With music, “composer/performer” will not be a thing, like you won’t have to say you’re gay anymore."
KEXP
"Recordings of Gísladóttir and Sverrisson’s collaborative works have yet to materialize, making their performance at KEX a special treat. Their set was completely improvisational, creating their cacophonous sounds right before our eyes. The two hardly ever connected their eyes while they played, but never did they feel out of sync. What's even more astounding is how the two blended so well while taking drastically different approaches with their instruments."
Ensemble New Babylon
"The young Icelandic composer Bára Gísladóttir (* 1989) is characterized by her special sound and characteristic transfer of moments to her works of contemporary music. Mesmerizing elements alternate with sounds reminiscent of a huge metal ship sliding down the waves. Then again, she uses contemporary techniques to capture something intangible, such as the fear or wonder of a childhood moment, which deeply touches. Bára Gísladóttir is one of the few musicians who actually leads Icelandic music - in the most challenging and provocative way."
Léonie Sonnings Musikfond
Bára wins the Léonie Sonning Talent Prize 2018: "I preferred football but then I heard Prokofiev."
Beehype: Iceland's best albums of 2017
[About 'Mass for some':] "It’s challenging, mesmerising stuff: her chosen instrument sounds like it’s being thoroughly mistreated, with violently snapped strings and aggressive bowing that groans like twisting metal—it sounds, at times, like a ship slipping down beneath the waves."
Johnson's Rambler: Sounds of the Year 2017
"Gísladóttir’s piece is a real gem, though: an evocation of the day, when she was aged eight, when her father returned home with a car (the eponymous Suzuki) that she knew he couldn’t afford. The way it used contemporary techniques (noise, fragmentation, silence) to capture the incomprehension, anxiety and wonder of that childhood moment was deeply, deeply touching."
The Reykjavík Grapevine
"She sings, cackles and mutters into the mic as she whips up a discomfiting, grating cacophony that sounds like nothing so much as the groan of a huge metal ship sliding beneath the waves."
Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen (Morgunblaðið)
"Framsækni og frumleiki einkennandi en Bára er ein af nokkrum íslenskum tónlistarkonum sem leiða í raun hérlenda tónlist af tormeltara taginu."
"Progressiveness and primacy were characteristic, Bára is one of a few musicians that in fact lead Iceland's music of the more indigestible kind:"
What's on Iceland about Mass for some
"...basically the hippest music for nerds I’ve heard lately."
The Reykjavík Grapevine about Mass for some
"...sort of like if Wes Anderson did a remake of ‘The Exorcist.’"
POLITIKEN about Mass for some
"...det var både fascinerende, sugende og meget fysisk at opleve Bára Gísladottir fra Island lade jord og klippegrund skælve og knage..."
"...it was both fascinating, absorbent and very physical to experience Bára Gísladóttir from Iceland letting earth and rocky ground tremble and creak..."
POLITIKEN
"...koncerten med Esbjerg Ensemble åbnede mine øjne for endnu en ung islænding, Bára Gísladóttir, som også havde en smertelig oplevelse at bearbejde, men som gjorde det med et miks af oprigtighed og stærke kunstneriske greb i stykket ’Suzuki Baleno II’. Smerte blev til værk, uden at smerten gik tabt."
"...the concert with Esbjerg Ensemble opened my eyes for yet a young Icelander, Bára Gísladóttir, that also had a painful experience to process, but did it with a mixture of sincerity and strong artistic grip in the piece 'Suzuki Baleno II'. Pain became a piece, without the pain getting lost."
RÚV
"Í ár voru á þinginu fulltrúar 29 útvarpsstöðva frá fjórum heimsálfum sem kynntu 58 verk. Framlag RÚV voru tónverkin Aequilibria eftir Önnu Þorvaldsdóttur og Otoconia eftir Báru Gísladóttur."
"This year, there were representetives from 29 broadcasting services, from four continents. The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service's contribution were the pieces Aequilibria by Anna Þorvaldsdóttir and Otoconia by Bára Gísladóttir."
Interview with conductor Baldur Brönnimann
Discussing the piece VAPE, written for The Danish National Symphony Orchestra
The Guardian
"Her performance is both arthouse – a woman sawing away at her instrument with little attention paid to such niceties as accessibility and melody – and thrilling. She does to the double bass what Hendrix did to the electric guitar, using it to coax out thrillingly strange new sounds."
More here
The Line of Best Fit
"Bára crawls onto the stage, hides herself behind her contrabass, and proceeds to pick and scratch at it while kicking her feet up, hissing and screeching for a good five minutes. Then she finally stands up and starts strumming her instrument nonsensically, producing what can hardly be described as notes. She then continues with the saxophone player to produce noise, but purposeful noise, plucking her strings and chanting in Italian to sounds played from her computer that sounded like the end of the world. For the next song she gaffa taped parts of her contrabass and played it like she was trying to communicate with whales underwater."
More here
The 405
"Both albums manage to maintain an improvisatory character despite what is almost certainly a methodical compositional process, which bodes well for the transition to a live environment, as do reports that Gísladóttir sometimes lies down on stage behind her double bass during performances; should be an enthralling hour."
More here
Fréttatíminn
"Er hrifin af öllu sem er hrátt, kalt, blautt og blátt"
Meira hér
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Bára Gísladóttir's five favourite albums
Amfion - pro musica classica
"The sounds seemed to be vomited onto the audience, primitively, as a spontaneous outcry. The smoothness at any given moment was delightful happenstance."
-Lauri Supponen
Read more here
I Care If You Listen
"The players sat together in silence as the piece ended while soprano Einarsdóttir repeated a phrase, capturing the beauty which only death can claim as its own."
-Gavin Gamboa
Read more here
The Reykjavík Grapevine:
"In a dimly lit, pin-drop quiet Mengi, young composer and musician Bára Gísladóttir lies onstage on her back, behind her double bass. Barely visible, she starts to make sound—a breathy growling, that builds into a throaty roar, and then a howl. Bára battles with the strings a little, and then starts building again, making a guttural gurgle that builds into a scream. The audience is enthralled, some sitting in silence, whether stunned, hypnotised or giggling with bewilderment."
Read more here
"Copenhagen-based Icelandic noise merchant, bassist and composer Bára Gísladóttir released a gorgeous solo album in April, Silva, which unfolds hypnotically. We were lucky enough to be at the album launch night, in a Reykjavik rock club where the sound system could barely cope with Bára’s immense bass frequencies."
"Highlights: The Icelandic Symphony Orchestra performing the above praised Bára Gísladóttir’s astonishing double-bass concerto ‘Hringla’ in Reykjavik’s Harpa Hall as part of Mykir Musikdagar (Dark Music Days) festival, which, after going twice, is now my favourite music festival in the world."
5:4 on SILVA:
"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.
Morgunblaðið/Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen on SILVA:
"Ég hlustaði hátt og þetta var ótrúlegt eins og venjulega. Þvílík listakona sem Bára Gísladóttir er og ég þreytist aldrei á að breiða út boðskapinn. Kannið þessa tónlist, helst í gær, á öllum þeim veitum og vettvöngum sem þið hafið aðgang að."
"I listened with a loud volume and it was incredible as usual. What an artist Bára Gísladóttir is - I never get tired of preaching the word. Check out this music, preferably yesterday, on all platforms available to you."
The Free Jazz Collective on SILVA:
"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."
Textura on SILVA:
"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."
Berlin Art Link on Animals of your pasture:
"A combination of meditative and chaotic was Bára Gísladóttir’s ‘Animals of your Pasture’ (2021) played by London’s Riot Ensemble. It climaxed in the droning roar of an electric guitar, while the flute and clarinet seemed to flutter above and even puncture its thickly textured vibration. Electric guitars featured in multiple pieces this year and their presence seemed surprising, even quaint, an instrument both out of date and comically futuristic."
Gramophone: Double review on VÍDDIR and SILVA:
"Whatever this brutalist monologue is, it’s intensely focused, structured with compositional discipline and a musical soul."
The Moderns on SILVA:
“We may already have heard the best album of 2023.”
Seismograf on SILVA:
“Bedre mindes jeg ikke at have hørt Bára Gísladóttir: så fokuseret og alligevel hengiven, fri; tilmed i en overrumplende optagelse, der indfanger dybets tonerigdom”
"I don't recall having heard Bára Gísladóttir better than this: so focused and yet so affectionate, free; even in a surprising recording, that captures the sonic richness of the depth."
Bára Gísladóttir shortlisted for the RPS Awards for Animals of your pasture.
5:4 - VÍDDIR, album of the year:
"...VÍDDIR is a unique, incredible experience, and without any doubt the best album of 2022."
The New Yorker/Alex Ross: Notable Performances and Recordings of 2022:
Notable recordings of the year: VÍDDIR by Bára Gísladóttir.
Morgunblaðið/Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen on VÍDDIR:
"Þetta er svo fokk kreisí verk. Svo þungt ... en svo fallegt ... og carnal geðveiki ... eitthvað algert innsta kjarna dæmi sem er í gangi líka. Ég eiginlega læsist alltaf þegar ég hlusta á Báru. Hún er algerlega einstök.“
"...í gegnum tónlist Báru hef ég upplifað slíkar drunur, hávaða og brjálæði að ég er ekki bara kominn á bríkina, ég er búinn að éta af mér allar neglurnar líka! En um leið – og hér er þessi óskapagaldur – finn ég svo djúpa og gegnheila fegurð að ég klökkna. Fegurðin er svo umlykjandi, svo sönn og svo stingandi að ég grét á meðan ég og meðdómari minn kynntum Norðurlandaráðsdómnefndinni verkið."
"This piece is so fucking crazy. So heavy ... but so beautiful ... and carnal insanity ... some total innermost core stuff going on as well. I sort of get locked every time I listen to Bára. She is absolutely unique."
"Through Bára's music I have experiences such drones, loudness and craziness that I'm not only feeling on the edge, I've eaten of all my fingernails as well! Simultaneously - and this is were the magic lyes - I feel such a deep and whole beauty that I am brought to tears. The beauty is so embracing, so true and so stinging that I cried while my co-judge and I introduces the piece to the Nordic Council."
5:4 on VÍDDIR:
“…it’s hands down one of the most unique, special, haunting and above all stunning pieces of music i’ve heard all year.”
Andrew Mellor in conversation with Bára Gísladóttir on VÍDDIR.
The Strad - Ones to watch: Five up-and-coming bass players:
"Bára Gísladóttir Icelandic composer and double bassist based in Copenhagen She recently performed her first double bass concerto, Hringla (‘Circle’), with the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra. She often writes for herself as soloist, such as on her 2017 album Mass for Some, comprising a piece in nine movements for double bass, voice and electronics."
Bára Gísladóttir nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize for VÍDDIR.
Politiken on Hringla:
"Gísladóttir, der bor og arbejder med København som base, viste, at hun med sin uhyggelige konsekvens og klanglige opfindsomhed, er en af tidens mest interessante komponister."
'Gísladóttir showed, with her eerie consequence and sonic ingenuity, that she is one of our time's most interesting composers'
5:4 on Animals of your pasture:
"Everything about it was elemental, eternal, indomitable."
Music Web International on Caeli:
"Caeli is all-encompassing and astonishing in a literal sense; at once it can be monolithic and elastic, dark and luminous, purposeful and daydreaming, bold and terrified, triumphant and sad. It’s all on these discs. Believe me."
Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen um Caeli:
"Plata ársins gerið svo vel, ekki ein einasta spurning. Ég get ekki ímyndað mér að betur verði gert á næstu mánuðum. Tja, nema Bára sjálf hlaði í annað verk."
Textura on Caeli
"...the recording by Gísladóttir and Sverrisson is all about soundscapes birthed live. Texture trumps melody in their pieces, Gísladóttir largely bowing her instrument and coaxing from it a guttural wealth of creaks, groans, and wails, and with Sverrisson augmenting her with enveloping washes and tempestuous rumblings, the two generate an immense, billowing force-field."
Bára Gísladóttir receives a three year working grant from the Danish Arts Foundation
Best of Bandcamp Contemporary Classical: April 2021
5:4 on Caeli
"...Caeli is the most compelling new music i’ve heard so far this year."
Headphone Commute on Caeli
“This is a two-hour double-disc composition of some of the darkest, brooding, border-line terrifying and absolutely gorgeous music that I’ve heard.”
I care if you listen: 5 questions to Bára Gísladóttir
5:4 about HĪBER
'Most stunning of all is the peculiar kind of tension exhibited in ‘cusp day’, where Bára’s by now familiar palette of squally overtones are seemingly held in check by some invisible force, gently hinted at by the electronics in such a way – omnipresent but defiantly undemonstrative – that they sound almost numinous. Yet over time it transpires that the bass and electronics aren’t simply discrete but integrated elements, not so much one within (and separate from) the other as one being interpenetrated and suffused by the other.'
AnEarful about HĪBER
'If you fell in love with the sharp sound of Saariaho's cello on Cendre's, you will be enraptured by Gísladóttir's blazingly brilliant song cycle for double bass and electronics. Taking her instrument to the limit, with whispering harmonic highs and grinding lows, she creates a universe that pulls you in from the start.'
Seismograf
'A single work was on the programme at Icelandic composer Bára Gísladóttir’s debut concert in Copenhagen. ‘Víddir’, a 60-minute composition of light and darkness, demonstrated the breadth of her imagination.-
POLITIKEN
"Hun tror fuldt og fast på apokalypsen. Det er noget rock and roll over hende. Noget Nick Cave-agtigt."
'She fully believes in the apocalypse. There's something rock and roll about her. Something Nick Cave-like.'
POLITIKEN
"Komponisten Bára Gísladóttir ... viste nu ... hvor mareridtsagtigt og suverænt hun kan skrive noder i værket ’Music to accompany your sweet splatter dreams’. En sindssyg oplevelse, der satte kroppen i alarmberedskab."
"The composer Bára Gísladóttir showed how night mare-like and supremely she can write notes with the piece ’Music to accompany your sweet splatter dreams’. An insane experience, that set the whole body in alert."
Bára Gísladóttir published by Edition·S
"The works of Bára Gísladóttir are characterised by a deep and self-reflective calm, at times producing an almost meditative state in the music. In her pieces, time is as likely to move in circles as it is moving forwards towards a distinct goal."
The Reykjavík Grapevine
"Listen Carefully: Bára Gísladóttir & Skúli Sverrisson’s Collaborative Bass Odyssey"
Interview with Seismograf
"We’re in a place now where the world is opening up. But it’s opening up because we’re in a desperate situation. There is no hope for life – we have ruined the planet. It’s going to be a slow, Alzheimer’s-style end. But very interesting things can happen in these situations because it can create extreme empathy and compassion, especially in the creative scene. With music, “composer/performer” will not be a thing, like you won’t have to say you’re gay anymore."
KEXP
"Recordings of Gísladóttir and Sverrisson’s collaborative works have yet to materialize, making their performance at KEX a special treat. Their set was completely improvisational, creating their cacophonous sounds right before our eyes. The two hardly ever connected their eyes while they played, but never did they feel out of sync. What's even more astounding is how the two blended so well while taking drastically different approaches with their instruments."
Ensemble New Babylon
"The young Icelandic composer Bára Gísladóttir (* 1989) is characterized by her special sound and characteristic transfer of moments to her works of contemporary music. Mesmerizing elements alternate with sounds reminiscent of a huge metal ship sliding down the waves. Then again, she uses contemporary techniques to capture something intangible, such as the fear or wonder of a childhood moment, which deeply touches. Bára Gísladóttir is one of the few musicians who actually leads Icelandic music - in the most challenging and provocative way."
Léonie Sonnings Musikfond
Bára wins the Léonie Sonning Talent Prize 2018: "I preferred football but then I heard Prokofiev."
Beehype: Iceland's best albums of 2017
[About 'Mass for some':] "It’s challenging, mesmerising stuff: her chosen instrument sounds like it’s being thoroughly mistreated, with violently snapped strings and aggressive bowing that groans like twisting metal—it sounds, at times, like a ship slipping down beneath the waves."
Johnson's Rambler: Sounds of the Year 2017
"Gísladóttir’s piece is a real gem, though: an evocation of the day, when she was aged eight, when her father returned home with a car (the eponymous Suzuki) that she knew he couldn’t afford. The way it used contemporary techniques (noise, fragmentation, silence) to capture the incomprehension, anxiety and wonder of that childhood moment was deeply, deeply touching."
The Reykjavík Grapevine
"She sings, cackles and mutters into the mic as she whips up a discomfiting, grating cacophony that sounds like nothing so much as the groan of a huge metal ship sliding beneath the waves."
Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen (Morgunblaðið)
"Framsækni og frumleiki einkennandi en Bára er ein af nokkrum íslenskum tónlistarkonum sem leiða í raun hérlenda tónlist af tormeltara taginu."
"Progressiveness and primacy were characteristic, Bára is one of a few musicians that in fact lead Iceland's music of the more indigestible kind:"
What's on Iceland about Mass for some
"...basically the hippest music for nerds I’ve heard lately."
The Reykjavík Grapevine about Mass for some
"...sort of like if Wes Anderson did a remake of ‘The Exorcist.’"
POLITIKEN about Mass for some
"...det var både fascinerende, sugende og meget fysisk at opleve Bára Gísladottir fra Island lade jord og klippegrund skælve og knage..."
"...it was both fascinating, absorbent and very physical to experience Bára Gísladóttir from Iceland letting earth and rocky ground tremble and creak..."
POLITIKEN
"...koncerten med Esbjerg Ensemble åbnede mine øjne for endnu en ung islænding, Bára Gísladóttir, som også havde en smertelig oplevelse at bearbejde, men som gjorde det med et miks af oprigtighed og stærke kunstneriske greb i stykket ’Suzuki Baleno II’. Smerte blev til værk, uden at smerten gik tabt."
"...the concert with Esbjerg Ensemble opened my eyes for yet a young Icelander, Bára Gísladóttir, that also had a painful experience to process, but did it with a mixture of sincerity and strong artistic grip in the piece 'Suzuki Baleno II'. Pain became a piece, without the pain getting lost."
RÚV
"Í ár voru á þinginu fulltrúar 29 útvarpsstöðva frá fjórum heimsálfum sem kynntu 58 verk. Framlag RÚV voru tónverkin Aequilibria eftir Önnu Þorvaldsdóttur og Otoconia eftir Báru Gísladóttur."
"This year, there were representetives from 29 broadcasting services, from four continents. The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service's contribution were the pieces Aequilibria by Anna Þorvaldsdóttir and Otoconia by Bára Gísladóttir."
Interview with conductor Baldur Brönnimann
Discussing the piece VAPE, written for The Danish National Symphony Orchestra
The Guardian
"Her performance is both arthouse – a woman sawing away at her instrument with little attention paid to such niceties as accessibility and melody – and thrilling. She does to the double bass what Hendrix did to the electric guitar, using it to coax out thrillingly strange new sounds."
More here
The Line of Best Fit
"Bára crawls onto the stage, hides herself behind her contrabass, and proceeds to pick and scratch at it while kicking her feet up, hissing and screeching for a good five minutes. Then she finally stands up and starts strumming her instrument nonsensically, producing what can hardly be described as notes. She then continues with the saxophone player to produce noise, but purposeful noise, plucking her strings and chanting in Italian to sounds played from her computer that sounded like the end of the world. For the next song she gaffa taped parts of her contrabass and played it like she was trying to communicate with whales underwater."
More here
The 405
"Both albums manage to maintain an improvisatory character despite what is almost certainly a methodical compositional process, which bodes well for the transition to a live environment, as do reports that Gísladóttir sometimes lies down on stage behind her double bass during performances; should be an enthralling hour."
More here
Fréttatíminn
"Er hrifin af öllu sem er hrátt, kalt, blautt og blátt"
Meira hér
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Bára Gísladóttir's five favourite albums
Amfion - pro musica classica
"The sounds seemed to be vomited onto the audience, primitively, as a spontaneous outcry. The smoothness at any given moment was delightful happenstance."
-Lauri Supponen
Read more here
I Care If You Listen
"The players sat together in silence as the piece ended while soprano Einarsdóttir repeated a phrase, capturing the beauty which only death can claim as its own."
-Gavin Gamboa
Read more here
The Reykjavík Grapevine:
"In a dimly lit, pin-drop quiet Mengi, young composer and musician Bára Gísladóttir lies onstage on her back, behind her double bass. Barely visible, she starts to make sound—a breathy growling, that builds into a throaty roar, and then a howl. Bára battles with the strings a little, and then starts building again, making a guttural gurgle that builds into a scream. The audience is enthralled, some sitting in silence, whether stunned, hypnotised or giggling with bewilderment."
Read more here
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