#4227: With Kristín Anna, From Big Ears 2019
Hear music recorded at Big Ears 2019 from the Icelandic musician and artist Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir, music by her sister Gyða, and work by Canadian composer Kara-Lis Coverdale.
Multi-instrumentalist, singer, and artist Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir, was a founding member of the experimental electronic pop band múm, and performed one woman shows as Kría Brekkan until 2015. With a singular voice that might be wispy and lighter than hummingbird feathers, Kristín Anna’s approach is very much one where the voice is an instrument, and she uses words as ways to make sounds. The Icelandic musician performed some of her own songs for piano and voice at the 2019 Big Ears Festival. Hear some of that music, along with an interview recorded (in the back of a van) at MusicNOW in Cincinnati in 2018.
This is music that Kristín Anna co-wrote and performed for visual artist Ragnar Kjartansson’s stage art piece “Forever Love” with her twin sister Gyða Valtýsdóttir and the Dessner twin brothers of The National.
Also, listen to music by Gyða Valtysdóttir, her twin sister, from her record, Epicycle, a “covers album” of some of her favorite classical compositions from throughout musical history. GYDA was also in the original lineup of múm, but she left the band to return to her studies; she went to Russia to study classical cello, before finishing her master’s degree studies in Switzerland. Her latest record is 2018’s Evolution. Listen to her rendering of “Seikilos Epitaph” which is, according to Wikipedia, “the oldest surviving complete musical composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the world.”
Want more Early Music? Here’s show #4017:
Plus, hear music by Montreal-based composer and producer Kara-Lis Coverdale and the English producer, Sam Shepherd, aka Floating Points.
Program #4227 Kristin Anna at Big Ears, and more (First aired 4/17/2019)
ARTIST: múm
WORK: Green Grass of Tunnel [4:14]
RECORDING: Finally We Are No One
SOURCE: FatCat Records
INFO: fatcatrecords.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Kristín Anna (Valtysdottir)
WORK: The Oceanwave [4:03]
RECORDING: I Must Be The Devil
SOURCE: Bel-Air Glamour Records
INFO: bel-airglamourrecords.com
ARTIST: Kristín Anna
WORK: Clay and Vapour [3:12]
RECORDING: St John's Episcopal Church, 3/22/19, from Big Ears 2019
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: bigearsfestival.org
ARTIST: Elizabeth Cotten
WORK: Shake Sugaree [1:21]
RECORDING: Shake Sugaree
SOURCE: Smithsonian Folkways #40147
INFO: folkways.si.edu
ARTIST: Kristín Anna
WORK: In Poem (based on Elizabeth Cotten's Shake Sugaree) [4:10]
RECORDING: Cafe Oto
SOURCE/INFO: cafeoto.co.uk
ARTIST: Kristín Anna
WORK: Gut [1:11]
RECORDING: St John's Episcopal Church, 3/22/19, from Big Ears 2019
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: bigearsfestival.org
ARTIST: Kristín Anna (Valtysdottir)
WORK: Like The Others [8:21]
RECORDING: I Must Be The Devil
SOURCE: Bel-Air Glamour Records
INFO: bel-airglamourrecords.com
ARTIST: Gyða Valtysdóttir
WORK: Seikilos Epitaph [4:39]
RECORDING: Epicycle
SOURCE: 12 TÓNAR CD SMC25
INFO: shop.12tonar.is
ARTIST: Kara-Lis Coverdale
WORK: Moments in Love [9:23]
RECORDING: Late Night Tales: Floating Points
SOURCE/INFO: latenighttales.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Floating Points
WORK: Silurian Blue [1:46]
RECORDING: Reflections: Mojave Desert
SOURCE: Luaka Bop
INFO: floatingpointsluakabop.bandcamp.com
