It must be hard for a musician to live in a place as picturesque and rugged as Iceland, and not feel the need to make music as stark and sweeping as the landscape around you. To capture those elements of magic and majesty, that sense of awe and isolation in sound.
And Eythor Arnalds manages to do just that on his latest release, “Promenade nr. 7”. Taken from the forthcoming album, Music for Walking, it is a piece of music that embodies the scope and scale, the natural grace and grandeur of the world beyond his door.
As spacious piano lines lay out the most delicate of structures, he weaves his cello through this soundscape, firstly as long, swooning notes, then building into more rhythmic designs. Violas and bass help underpin this growing momentum with even more dark energy, building tension and anticipation before fading away once more.
The video explains the point of the music (as does the album’s name mentioned above). As we see the artist walking through the grassy plains and deep snow, tackling the crags and rocks with the looming hills and distant mountains and ever-present force, you realise that the music is perfectly in tune with his ambulatory adventures. It is music made at the interface of man and nature.
It is the soundtrack to movement as meditation. A sound that perfectly follows the highs and lows in both the physical effort and the freedom of the mind to wander.
A gorgeous video for an equally gorgeous piece of music.
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