Tag: violin

Árstíðir

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Árstíðir (English: Seasons) is an Icelandic indie-folk band with classical, progressive rock and minimalist elements. This tune is titled “Ljóð í sand” (Poetry In The Sand). Árstíðir became known to a wider internet audience in 2013 when a Youtube video went viral (3,000,000+ hits) showed them performing impromptu, Heyr himna smiður (“Hear, Smith of heavens”, a 13th century Icelandic hymn) at a train station in Germany. The video was shot by their PR manager after they had played a concert the venue inside the train station. The a capella was noted for improvising with the vaulted acoustics of the train station to effect the echo chambers of a monastic chapel.

Find the Icelandic Hymn that went viral on Youtube here.

Find their album on iTunes here: Svefns Og Voku Skil (Sleep & Waking Returns)

Sunday Morning: Pärt and Soul

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Stuart Isacoff in wsj.com titled Pärt and Soul:

“You may not know the name, but you’ve heard his music. Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s alluring, hypnotic “tintinnabuli” (“bell-like”) style has resonated with listeners world-wide—the database Bachtrack reports that Mr. Pärt is now the most performed living classical composer. The haunting music in the trailer for the film “Gravity”—a perfect complement to the image of astronauts adrift, its piano pattern suggesting a cosmic clock as floating violin tones and spacious pauses convey a sense of human frailty—is his 1978 work, “Spiegel Im Spiegel” (Mirror in the Mirror).

…”The thing that struck me when I first heard this music at age 18,” remembers Mr. Reeves, “is that I should not be sitting—I should be standing. I cried. It’s not like a Beethoven sonata, where you are on a journey, watching how a theme develops. With Pärt, it is the opposite—you are emptying everything out, accessing a space that may be cluttered because people are always talking over it.” Continue reading “Sunday Morning: Pärt and Soul” →

Hymnalaya

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This band from Iceland was formed in 2012. The sound of Hymnalaya is rooted in old Hymns which are combined with indie, ethnic and ambient textures.  The band can be found on Youtube, Facebook and on their website here.

Whispers

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Related Post: Passenger Bio & hit song “Let Her Go” here.

Kishi Bashi

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Kishi Bashi is the pseudonym of singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter Kaoru Ishibashi. Ishibashi, 38, was born in Seattle, Washington. He grew up in Norfolk, Virginia where both of his parents were professors at Old Dominion University. He went on to study classical music becoming a renowned violinist. Ishibashi has recorded with and toured internationally as a violinist with diverse artists such as Regina Spektor, Sondre, Of Montreal and Alexi Murdoch. (Source: Wiki)

“NPR’s Stephen Thompson called the Virginia native’s “one-man orchestra” of violin, beatboxing and English and Japanese vocals one of a few standouts from South By Southwest. The Washington Post reported at least one woman openly weeping at a Kishi Bashi concert, and Andrew Bird comparisons are already piling on like so many violin loops.” Read more @ Huffington Post.

Find his album on iTunes here.