Music and the Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Plant: Style, Aesthetics, and Environmental Politics in Iceland

ABSTRACT

This article bridges ecocriticism and popular music analysis in a close reading of three examples that respond musically to environmental debates in Iceland during the period 2006–2009. Political-environmental tensions in Iceland reached a heated level in the mid 2000s with the construction of the Kárahnjúkar hydropower project, which elicited a string of artistic and musical responses. While considering Valgeir Sigurðsson’s “Grýlukvæði,” Björk’s “Náttúra,” and Sigur Rós’s “Vaka,” this article argues that incorporating textual analysis and interpretation is key in forging an ecocritical study of popular music.

Acknowledgments

Parts of this article was presented at the 2017 meeting of the Finnish Musicological Society, and at an invited talk for the Department of Music at the Icelandic Academy of the Arts in March 2018. I want to thank Juha Torvinen and þorbjörg Daphne Hall for giving me the opportunity to present my research. Thanks goes to Mikael Males for assistance with textual issues of “Grýlukvæði.” I am truly indebted to my friends and colleagues, including Kai Arne Hansen who read early drafts of this article, and Kimberly Cannady for encouragement and support. A special thanks to my advisor Stan Hawkins for invaluable mentorship at all stages of research and writing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Examples of similar studies include Stimeling on music and coal mining in the Appalachian Mountains, and Guy on music and environmental imagination in Taiwan.

2. Ecocriticism, as a framework for cultural analysis, is generally characterized by the critical historicizing of “nature” and a challenging of the anthropocentricism in traditional narratives (Garrard 3). For its varied applications in music studies, see Allen and Dawe.

3. Anthropological studies on Iceland have emphasized the entanglements of “the natural” and “the social-historical” in processes of identity formation (Hastrup; Durrenberger and Pálsson, Anthropology). Scholars in history and geography take a similar perspective on the social and political trajectories of modern Iceland (Árnason; Benediktsson and Lund; Magnússon; Karlsdottir; Pálsson). Dibben (“Music”) has studied the intersections of music and environmentalism in Iceland with reference to the hydropower industry, yet does not employ music analysis, which leaves room for the perspectives offered here.

4. The period from the age of settlement in the mid ninth century until Icelanders came under the rule of the Norwegian king in 1264 is known as the “saga age,” the glorified epoch of heroic deeds described in the famous body of literature known as the Icelandic Family Sagas (Islendingasögur).

5. Landscape aesthetics played a big part in these debates. Valgerður Sverrisdóttir, Minister for Industry during the construction of the Kárahnjúkar plant, proclaimed that the land being submerged by the dams at Kárahnjúkar was “not particularly beautiful” (“enginn serstök nátturufegurð”). This sparked a debate on what “beautiful nature” means, and if the value of nature preservation applies only to “beautiful” areas.

6. The composition relies on the common trope of noise/music as an aesthetic correlate to nature/culture in Western music aesthetics. This point has been argued by several scholars, recently by Edwards in the context of ecocritical music analysis (“Silence”). Edwards reads two of the canonical thinkers in European music aesthetics – Eduard Hanslick and Theodor Adorno – as proponents of a music philosophy in which music (belonging to culture) is the imposition of order and control onto noise (belonging to nature).

7. ÍSMUS (íslenskur músík- og menningararfur – “Icelandic music and cultural heritage”), is a database containing recordings, texts, manuscripts, images and film pertaining to Icelandic musical heritage. The database is maintained by the Tónlistarsafn Íslands and the Árni Magnusson Institute of Icelandic Studies.

8. See, for instance, Edda Heiðrún Backmann (1991), Barnajól, PS Musík, compact disc; Eddukórinn (1991), Íslensk þjóðlög, Sena, compact disc; Þrjú á Palli (1971), Hátíð Fer að Höndum Ein, SG – hljómplötum 040, compact disc.

9. This is an example of what Brøvig-Hanssen terms “opaque mediation,” which she contrasts with “transparent mediation” to delineate experiences of listening to and through sound production technology (“Listening”).

10. Brøvig-Hanssen and Danielsen argue that what constitutes a surreal spatiality in recorded music is highly contextual. The effect of surreal spatial designs in music production is subject to historical processes of naturalization, in which the “surreal” becomes “naturalized” over time. However, by way of its intertextual relationship to the traditional song, “Grýlukvæði” enters into a folk music discourse privileging more natural acoustic environments, which makes the effect of Sigurðsson’s compositional play of spaces far more effective. See especially Richardson (Eye) for discussions of the audiovisual surreal.

11. The use of “defamiliarization” here is drawing on the critical theory of Adorno, who wrote, “Perspectives must be fashioned that displace and estrange the world, reveal it to be with its rifts and crevices” (Minima 247). Adorno was influenced by fellow Marxist Bertolt Brecht’s usage of verfremdungseffekt – estrangement effect – in his political theatre. Brecht, in turn, was likely influenced by the German translation of Russian literary theorist Viktor Shklovsky’s highly influential concept of ostranenie.

12. In popular musicology, theorizations of uncanny voices have mainly been related to queerness, see Jarman-Ivens (Queer Voices) and Hawkins (Queerness).

13. Original text: “Þessi innrás útlendingsins í íslenskan kveðskap endurspeglar í raun boðskap myndarinnar.”

14. Björk and Thom Yorke famously collaborated on the Oscar-winning song “I’ve Seen It All” featured in Lars Von Trier’s film Dancer in the Dark (2001). Regarding “Náttúra,” Björk decided to ask Yorke for a contribution with the aim of maximizing exposure and to bring awareness to the issue (see Philips).

15. This includes matters of subjectivity and identity (Hawkins, “Musical”; Hawkins, “Musicological”; Dibben, “Subjectivity”). Other studies of Björk emphasize aspects of feminism and post-humanism (Marsh and West; Robbie; Goldin-Perschbaker) as well as compositional practice and musical style (Dibben, Björk; Malawey; Grimley, "Hidden"; Burns, LaFrance, and Hawley).

16. This brings to mind Steven Feld’s description of musical practice among the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea: “Singing about water, with water, and imagining song as water and vocal flow – here the poetry of place meets the sensuality of soundscape and the singing voice” (5).

17. Björk’s artistic involvement in numerous protest activities in Iceland is discussed further in Dibben (“Music”).

18. Heima has seen much attention from scholars. Þorbjörg Daphne Hall views the film as an expression of nostalgia, emphasizing the cultural tensions between the rural and the urban in Icelandic society, which is similarly foregrounded by Nicola Dibben (“Nature”). John Richardson provides an in-depth analysis of the audiovisual aesthetics at work, including the use of silences and disruptions in medium-aware performances that speaks to his theorization of the audiovisual surreal (Eye 275–81).

19. On the post-rock genre, see Hodgkinson; Hibbett; Osborn; Chuter.

20. Sigur Rós’s close relationship with film music composers Jóhann Jóhannsson and Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson at the turn of the century has likely influenced their style.

21. Jónsi’s iconic voice has been interpreted in terms of its androgynous qualities by Miller, who describes it by reference to the uncanny nature of the boy soprano voice.

22. While the actual performance at the protest camp, witnessed by a rather small crowd, was executed completely acoustically, the soundtrack that accompanies the performance in the film shifts halfway through to a different recording of the song made outside the band’s studio. The immense electric cost of producing the finished audiovisual performance is masked behind a staged acousticness indexed by visual means, thus exemplifying Richardson’s point that “acoustic music is a discourse that requires visual authentication in order to do its cultural work” (Eye 275).

23. The use of nonsensical vocalization in many Sigur Rós songs has been studied in terms of its lineage to dada and surrealism (Petersen; Hayden) as well as its nostalgic qualities and childlike playfulness (Richardson, An Eye; Appel). It is frequently misconstrued as an invented language, due in part to the band members themselves who named it Vonlenska (“Hopelandic”). The term glossolalia is often applied, which in most cases attaches unfortunate religious baggage.

24. The harmonium was found in most churches and homes in pre-war Iceland. In 1930, there were more than 2,300 harmoniums in Iceland, according to available import statistics, which is one harmonium per 40 inhabitants of the sparsely populated country. This was related in personal communication by musicologist Bjarki Sveinbjörnsson, see also Gilsson. This sheds some light on why several contemporary bands in Iceland have relied on the sound of the harmonium specifically for nostalgic effect.

25. Original text: “eins og einhver væri að ganga um Þjóðminjasafnið með sleggju.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tore Størvold

Tore Størvold is doctoral research fellow at the Department of Musicology, University of Oslo. He is affiliated with the Nordic Sounds: Critical Music Research Network under the direction of prof. Stan Hawkins. His doctoral research project is titled “Sounding Northern Environments: Ecocritical Perspectives on Contemporary Musical Practices in Iceland.” The project explores how artists and composers use music in order to imagine and critique different conceptions of nature, and the human within it, specifically in an Icelandic context.