Bleep

Originally composed for Slovakian director Peter Magát’s wartime drama Malá ríša, Valgeir Sigurðsson’s Kvika possesses a classically-minded poignancy. With the aid of two orchestras and a choir, his deeply moving score imbues the complicated themes of military conflict — glory, pride, disillusionment, suffering — with the brain-burrowing memorability of Hans Zimmer and John Williams, and the profound melancholia of mid-century minimalism.

But Kvika, meaning ‘magma’ in Icelandic, doesn’t need Magát’s visuals to be impactful; like much of Sigurðsson’s work, this LP offers as seismic and immersive a listening experience as any motion picture. The valorous horns and strings of ‘Foot Soldiers’ drone with an unsayable sadness as they envelop the audio space, crafting a whole world in just over a minute-and-a-half. There’s something inviting in the sweet, swooping simplicity of pieces such as ‘Eva’s Lament’, while ‘Hypoxia’ gently meditates on a leitmotif before falling away to reveal a cavern of muffled static. ‘Brute Force’ transposes this darkness onto its string section, as a drawn-out phrase pulls slowly into focus, the elemental violence of its title reflected in the distant thud of a drum.

As tense and dramatic as it is sweet and cheerful, Kvika is a masterclass in exploring complicated and multi-dimensional emotions through music.