themilkman on Sep 12th 2012 01:51 am
VALGEIR SIGURÃSSON
Architecture Of Loss
HVALUR13
Bedroom Community 2012
10 Tracks. 38mins02secs
Amazon UK: CD | LP US: CD | LP
Musician, composer, arranger, producer, curator, label head… the range of activities covered by Valgeir Sigurðsson is pretty extraordinary. This has led him to work with artists as diverse as Björk, Hildur Guðnadóttir, CocoRosie, Maps, Feist, The Magic Numbers or Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, but it is the small cluster of like-minded musicians and composers (Nico Muhly, Sam Amidon, Ben Frost, DanÃel Bjarnason) he has gathered on Bedroom Community, the imprint he set up six years ago in Reykjavik, Iceland, which constitutes the most exciting and rewarding part of his work. Bedroom Community has always functioned like a collective of artists rather than like a standard record label, resulting in each artist substantially contributing to the work of his stable mates.
Architecture Of Loss, Sigurðsson’s third album, following EkvÃlÃbrium (2007) and Draumalandið (2010), was originally conceived as the score for a ballet of the same name by American choreographer Stephen Petronio Continue Reading »
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themilkman on Sep 6th 2012 01:21 am
NICO MUHLY
Drones & Piano
SELUR2
Bedroom Community 2012
05 Tracks. 13mins36secs
NICO MUHLY
Drones & Viola
SELUR3
Bedroom Community 2012
04 Tracks 13mins24secs
NICO MUHLY
Drones & Violin
SELUR4
Bedroom Community 2012
04 Tracks. 11mins02secs
Drones & Piano
Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: DLD iTunes: DLD
Drones & Viola
Boomkat: DLD iTunes: DLD
Drones & Violin
Boomkat: DLD
Born in Vermont, Muhly grew up in Providence, Rhodes Island, just north of New York where he now resides., Muhly graduated from Columbia University before receiving a Masters in Music from the world-famous Juilliard School in New York eight years ago. An incredibly talented musician and composer with an insatiable thirst for creation, Muhly has since worked alongside Philip Glass, a composer he admires, and has composed a number of pieces, some of which have been released on Icelandic imprint Bedroom Community (Speaks Volume (2006), Mothertongue (2008), I Drink The Air Before Me (2010)), and more recently, Decca (A Good Understanding (2010), in partnership with Bedroom Community, Seeing Is Believing (2011)). But what makes his career truly remarkable is that Muhly doesn’t compartment his work, and he can as easily be found arranging orchestral parts for artists as diverse as Antony & The Johnsons, Björk, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Grizzly Bear or fellow Bedroom Community friends Valgeir Sigurðsson, Ben Frost or Sam Amidon.
Nico’s latest venture is a three-part digital release based around the concept of drones around which he develops harmonic structures. Continue Reading »
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themilkman on Dec 8th 2011 01:40 am
BEN FROST & DANÃEL BJARNASON
Sólaris
HVALUR12
Bedroom Community 2011
11 Tracks. 46mins08secs
Amazon UK: CD | LP US: CD Boomkat: CD | LP | DLD iTunes: DLD
Bedroom Community’s long serving prince of noir Ben Frost and recent roster addition DanÃel Bjarnason have joined forces for a project which takes them beyond their respective sound. Originally created for the 2010 edition of Unsound Festival, and based on Polish writer Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 novel Solaris and its 1972 loose adaptation by Andrei Tarkovky, this work combines powerful orchestral sequences and discreet electronic textures into a haunting and intimate soundtrack.
Recorded with Sinfonietta Cracovia, the creative process went through a series of stages, from original live improvisations by Bjarnason and Frost to the final score, written from data collected as these improvisations were fed into a computer and irremediably altered. Continue Reading »
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themilkman on Mar 9th 2010 01:09 am
SAM AMIDON
I See The Sign
HVALUR9
Bedroom Community 2010
10 Tracks. 42mins23secs
Amazon: UK: CD | LP US: CD | LP Boomkat: CD
Hailing from a small provincial town in south Vermont, Sam Amidon grew up in a family of traditional folk musicians who have made a life out of performing a wide range of music from the American folklore and teaching old New England stories and songs. Having left his native state and moved to New York, Sam took his musical roots with him, performing old songs, bringing them up to date by creating modern acoustic arrangements. He eventually released his first album, But This Chicken Proved Falsehearted, in 2007. After joining the ranks of the ever excellent Bedroom Community, Sam recorded All Is Well, his second album, with a number of Icelandic musicians, including Valgeir Sigurðsson. The album also saw contributions from Bedroom Community regulars Ben Frost and Nico Muhly, while Sam’s younger brother Stefan played drums on a couple of tracks. Since, Sam has contributed to his fellow label mates’ releases, especially Nico Muhly’s Mothertongue album, for which he provided vocals and played banjo and guitar on The Only Tune, a piece adapted from a disturbing folk song about two sisters that Muhly’s parents used to sing to him as a child. Continue Reading »
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themilkman on Feb 24th 2010 10:05 pm
VALGEIR SIGURÃSSON
Draumalandið
HVALUR8
Bedroom Community 2010
12 Tracks. 39mins12secs
Amazon US: CD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD
It is quite a busy time for Icelandic imprint Bedroom Community. Hot on the heels of the stunning debut album by composer and musician DanÃel Bjarnason and ahead of the second album Sam Amidon has recorded for the label comes the second album by label head and Bedroom Community collective fundamental member Valgeir SigurÄ‘sson.
Draumalandið (Dreamland) is the soundtrack to a feature-length documentary, also entitled Dreamland, by Thorfinnur Gudnason and Andri Snær Magnason. Continue Reading »
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themilkman on Feb 3rd 2010 01:09 am
DANÃEL BJARNASON
Processions
HVALUR7CD
Bedroom Community 2010
07 Tracks. 49mins31secs
Amazon UK: CD Amazon US: CD Boomkat: CD | DLD
Iceland may be a fairly isolated strip of land planted in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, with a population of just under a third of a million, but it is certainly a fertile land when it comes to music, as it churns new talents with international appeal with insistent regularity. Pop was for a time the main beneficiary of this flow of artists, but increasingly, it is classical musicians and composers who are at the forefront of the country’s output.
The latest to emerge from the Icelandic cauldron is DanÃel Bjarnason, a pianist, composer and conductor who studied in Reykjavik and Freiburg, Germany. Signed to Valgeir Sigurðsson’s Bedroom Community, where he joins New York-based Nico Muhly, Bjarnason, 30, is the co-founder and main conductor of the Isafold Chamber Orchestra, with whom he has recorded a couple of albums of modern classical works. He has also worked with a variety of orchestras around the world and, like Muhly, crossed over into the pop/rock realm to work with folk songstress Ólöf Arnalds, singer Pétur Ben or Sigur Rós amongst others.
Collecting three radically different pieces, Bow To Strings, Processions and Skelja, this album, Bjarnason’s debut as a composer, is a particularly vivid and rich example of modern composition at its exhilarating best. Continue Reading »
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themilkman on Sep 25th 2009 01:05 am
BEN FROST
By The Throat
HVALUR6
Bedroom Community 2009
11 Tracks. 45mins53secs
It is really a case of Frost by name, Frost(y) by nature when it comes to Australian-born musician Ben Frost. Currently living in Reykjavik, Iceland, Frost has been spilling his chilling blend of decaying electronica and processed electric guitars since 2001 and has released music on Room40, Dreamland Recordings and Architecture. In 2006, he joined the ranks of Valgeir Sigurðsson’s excellent Bedroom Community and released his third album, Theory Of Machines, an icy collection of battered metal heavily processed through razor-sharp electronics and field recordings.
Three years on, By The Throat throws this broken world on its head and plunges into a dense, dark and threatening network of subterranean galleries, almost permanently subjected to destructive quakes. Continue Reading »
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themilkman on Jun 3rd 2008 11:26 pm
NICO MUHLY
Mothertongue
HVALUR5CD
Bedroom Community 2008
10 Tracks. 49mins11secs
A year on from the release of his critically acclaimed debut album Speaks Volumes, New York-based classical composer Nico Muhly returns with an altogether more ambitious and visionary record. Entirely based around the notion of language, Mothertongue is a strange and fascinating work which goes beyond Muhly’s previous work and undoubtedly feeds on his brush with various musical genres, most notably with the likes of Björk, Antony & The Johnsons or Bedroom Community’s label head and producer Valgeir Sigurðsson.
Mothertongue is split into three major parts, each recorded with a different vocal artist and making use of the human voice in a particular way. Continue Reading »
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themilkman on Oct 17th 2007 02:10 pm
SAM AMIDON
All Is Well
HVALUR4CD/LP
Bedroom Community 2007
10 Tracks. 47mins49secs
In just over a year, Icelandic imprint Bedroom Community, headed by Björk and Bonnie Prince Billy (amongst others) collaborator Valgeir Sigurðsson, have distilled some of the most interesting records around, first with Nico Muhly’s delicate Speaks Volumes, then with Ben Frost’s textural Theory Of Machines, and, more recently with Sigurðsson’s own stellar pop opus Ekvilibrium.
Joining them is folk singer Sam Amidon, a twenty-six year old musician from Brattleboro, Vermont, who currently lives in New York. He shares his time between his solo project and various bands, including Doveman, Stars Like Fleas and The Amidons, a band formed by his parents and dedicated to traditional dance and music forms. Continue Reading »
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themilkman on Aug 3rd 2007 12:45 pm
VALGEIR SIGURÄSSON
EqvÃlibrÃum
HVALUR3CD/LP
Bedroom Community 2007
10 Tracks. 49mins10secs
Icelandic musician and producer Valgeir Sigurðsson is best known as a regular collaborator with Björk, having contributed to all her records since Selmasongs, and for recent stints with the likes of Bonnie Prince Billy (The Letting Go) and CocoRosie (The Adventures Of Ghosthorse And Stillborn). He recently set up his own imprint, Bedroom Community, and has published Speaks Volume, the debut album from twenty-four year old American classical composer Nico Muhly and the most recent output from Melbourne’s Ben Frost.
EqvÃlibrÃum, Sigurðsson’s long overdue debut album is an elegant collection of gentle acoustic pieces tainted with orchestral swathes and discreet electronics textures. Continue Reading »
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themilkman on Jan 25th 2007 03:52 pm
BEN FROST
Theory Of Machines
HVALUR2
Bedroom Community 2006
05 Tracks. 38mins40secs
There is something terribly disturbing about the cover of Ben Frost’s latest offering. Showing him hanging upside down, feet and hands wrapped in green plastic bags and tied together. Additional images of him lying on the floor looking half dead or of his head caught up in a strange metallic contraption further accentuate the feeling of unease that surrounds this release. While a definite stylistic slant, these images are more than just a simple visual translation of the content of the album. Continue Reading »
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themilkman on Jan 8th 2007 05:09 pm
NICO MUHLY
Speaks Volume
HVALUR1
Bedroom Community 2006
07 Tracks. 53mins27secs
Released on new Icelandic imprint Bedroom Community, set up by record producer and Björk collaborator Valgeir Sigurðsson, Speaks Volumes is the debut album from twenty-four year old composer and musician Nico Muhly. Born in Vermont and raised in Rhodes Island, Muhly studied composition at the Julliard School. He has since worked with Antony & The Johnsons, orchestrated the score for The Manchurian Candidate in 2004, collaborated with Björk on Medúlla and conducted the score for Matthew Barney’s Drawing Restraint 9, once again working in partnership with Björk. Continue Reading »
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