Sigur Rós return today with a track entitled “Dvergmál” from their long-awaited album release Odin’s Raven Magic due out December 4th on Krunk, via Warner Classics. The orchestral and choral project was originally commissioned by the Reykjavik Arts Festival in 2002, and it features the Schola Cantorum of Reykjavik and L’Orchestre des Laureats du Conservatoire national de Paris. Only performed a handful of times, this definitive release is from a live recording of the 70-minute score from the Paris’ La Grande Halle de la Villette.
Odin’s Raven Magic is a collaboration between the band and Icelandic music legend Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson (who is also ordained ‘chief goði’ of the pagan Norse religion Ásatrúarfélagið), as well as Steindór Andersen, a fisherman and one of Iceland’s most respected chanters of traditional epic narrative. With orchestral and choral arrangements handled by former Sigur Rós member Kjartan Sveinsson and Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir from the band amiina, the piece features a five-octave marimba built from roughly-hewn pieces of stone by sculptor and artist Páll Guðmundsson.
The project springs from Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson’s long-standing interest in the Hrafnagaldur Óðins, or Odin’s Raven Magic, from Iceland’s Medieval literary canon the Edda. Often considered the “lost” poem because it was struck from the cannon in 1867 by the Norwegian scholar Sophus Bugge, who claimed it was a fake, the poem was reintroduced in 2002 when research revealed it to indeed be an authentic portion of the original collection. Discussing the poem, Hilmarsson explains:
“Hrafnagaldur Óðins has lots of interpretation and implications that fire up the imagination… It’s a very visual poem, with images all about falling down, and a world freezing from north to south. It was an apocalyptic warning. Perhaps the people of the time felt it in their skins. Today, of course, Iceland is involved in environmental issues surrounding hydro-electric power and the destruction of the highlands. We are being warned again.”
