It is hard not to think of the harrowing images from the multi-award-winning series Chernobyl, or the »Bathroom Dance« scene from Todd Phillips’ Joker, when the strings on Where to From begin to lament, repeatedly breaking off as if they need to pause for breath. That Hildur Guðnadóttir is a virtuoso of film music has long since been confirmed by an Oscar and numerous other major awards. And although she deliberately sought to avoid the sound of a soundtrack on her first solo album in over a decade, its cinematic undertone is difficult to deny.
The sombre strings move between hushed passages and extended outbursts, as if mourning something – or someone. Elsewhere, Guðnadóttir erects a musical monument to Uruguay’s former president Pepe Mujica, using the voices of Else Torp and Jessika Kenney to transform statements from an interview into a sacral, hymn-like ode to introspection. This moment of hope, however, is disrupted by Guðnadóttir’s own mystical voice on »Fólk fær andlit« (»People Get Faces«). She wrote the piece in response to Iceland’s handling of Albanian refugee families who were deported from the country in 2015. With cool atonality, the Icelandic composer once again provides a musical accompaniment to the present, scoring the oppressive end-time drama that we call reality.
