Daníel Bjarnason - Over Light Earth

On Over Light Earth the intensity of Daníel Bjarnason’s orchestral voice is captured through meticulous close-miking and multitracking, a recording process that sets this recording radically apart from that of conventional orchestral recordings. This album is very much the fruit of Bjarnason’s ongoing and intimate symbiosis with Bedroom Community’s Valgeir Sigurðsson. 
Here, with engineer Paul Evans and the newly formed Reykjavík Sinfonia, they have produced a suitably unconventional symphonic recording. As much at home in the recording studio as he is on the conductor’s podium, it’s no wonder Bjarnason is equally effective in collaboration with other sonic architects, whether it’s the band Sigur Rós —he collaborated with them on their last two albums— or his Bedroom Community labelmates.
He uses the technique of muffling the piano strings to create syncopated, danceable rhythms almost like percussion pieces for piano and there might be a hint of a young John Cage here; of the rhythmically vital, pseudo-primitive prepared piano works. It’s between the simple elements and more abstract materials - between harmonic motion and pure gesture - that we can hear Daníel Bjarnason’s compositional voice itself beginning to emerge. 

Released September 30, 2013