Hildur Gudnadóttir, Without Sinking (Touch)

Such perfect timing. I had only just finished waffling about the importance of cellist Hildur Gudnadóttir’s contribution to the band Angel, noting how the band changed from being all awkward and abrasive to being lush and listenable when she joined them, when along comes her first solo album on the Touch label. And what a perfect thing it is too.

The sleeve depicts a pier (Clevedon I think, wrought-iron fans) between grey skies and seas, seemingly propped up by the smudge of its own reflection. The tracks on the album are similarly suspended, with long solitary notes and denser sections intended to evoke an assortment of clouds. Jóhann Jóhannsson appears on a couple of tracks, and his work is a useful reference point – Without Sinking is a powerful, cinematic and often elegiac work for strings. Track titles are descriptive: after an overcast piece entitled “Overcast”, the album erupts with light on, erm “Erupting Light“, as Hildur’s cello is teased out into separate lines and spun into delicate melodic phrases. The zither of “Aether” dances at the edge of perception, before it is swelled by soft clarinet and voice. “Into Warmer Air” is immaculately composed, with looped cello parts rising up to dangerously rarified air to merge with Jóhannsson’s warning bleeps.

For a Touch album, Without Sinking is remarkably pure and unaffected. There is little in the way of electronics, and any processing is unobtrusive. As an intense and brooding representation of the natural world, however, it fits thematically into a canon containing works by the likes of BJ Nilsen and Chris Watson. Drift off in the general direction of the Touch Shop for a copy.

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