[CP 089 CD] Llárus Halldór Grímsson, Thorsteinn Hauksson; Íslensk Raftónlist, Hringurinn

2021 reédition of this C.P. classic, now including Grimsson's icy mid-80s solo DX7 album "Hringurinn" to the "Íslensk Raftónlist" material on a second disc!

Ah, yes ; here's Mr. P.C. C.P.'s treatment of the other known Icelandic Early Electronic music LP - the first, while not really Icelandic in the sense that it was composed @ UCSD :: Thorkell Sigurbjrnsson's "La Jolla Good Friday;" Creel Pone #52 - but then again these two pieces were composed in Holland and Sweden, respectively. Despite that each side-length piece - composed, respectively, by Llárus Halldór Grímsson & Thorsteinn Hauksson - was composed at the dawn of the 1980s, the music here has more in common, timbrally and technique-wise, with the Danish late-60s scene - Bent Lorentzen's heaven and hell epic "The Bottomless Pit," specifically, but also the work of Else-Marie Pade and Jürgen Plaetner.

The first movement of Grímsson's "Vetrarrmantik" is quite gestural / minimal compared to the shuddering rhythmics & blasted synthesized thunderclaps that dot the second & third - making full use of the Instituut Voor Sonologie's arsenal of analogue synthesis tools; despite the year nary a plonky computer-attack in sight. Hauksson's "Sonata" progresses in a similar fashion - substitute the Instituut's hand-wired modules with EMS Stockholm's sprawling EMS Synthi 100 & Buchla systems - the same heard on Ákos Rozmann's epic "Images of the Dream and Death" - utilizing a wide array of barber-pole / Shepard tone patterns at the pieces crescendo before settling into a long section of wafting FM tonalities that wouldn't at all seem out of place on an Autechre LP. This Creel Pone replication comes complete with a reprint of the 4-page booklet in both Icelandic and English, containing an excellent overview of Icelandic electronic music from the early 60s to the mid-80s, Composer bios and information regarding the specific construction of these two epics.