"At the outset everything merges. Echoes from the sound sources shroud perception.
Steadily the reflections subside as we draw closer to a vital ever-changing core."
Icelandic saxophonist and composer Tumi Árnason presents high-concept sombre opus Hlýnun (Warming), a piece that addresses our current existential threat, the climate crisis, through free jazz and experimental improvisation. Accompanying Tumi are bassist Skúli Sverrisson, drummer Magnús Trygvason Eliassen and keyboardist Magnús Jóhann Ragnarsson.
Hlýnun invites the listener into a dynamic ecosystem. Four instruments orbit each other, trade ideas and create vital soundscapes. A living multiplicity that grows and flourishes, gains balance but is threatened by an ever advancing hegemony. Songs of extinct birds are unveiled through melodies and a requiem for life itself bursts out of the organ. Man’s diagrams and machinery invade the composition, rousing intensities and endangering its unity. Members are lost in the commotion, the ecosystem regresses and becomes an apocalyptic ambiance, hiss and silence.
"At the end we dissolve into dust and phantoms
amid machinery and void."
1. I - Lungu
2. II - ‘Ō‘ō‘ā‘ā
3. III - Svart haf
4. IV - Söngur úr svartholinu
5. V - Um heimsslit, VI - Suð
Composed and written by Tumi Árnason
Tumi Árnason - Tenor Saxophone
Magnús Jóhann Ragnarsson - Piano, Rhodes, Farfisa
Skúli Sverrisson - Electric Bass
Magnús Trygvason Eliassen - Drums
Recorded and Mixed by Albert Finnbogason
Mastered by Sarah Register
Album Artwork designed by Elín Edda Þorsteinsdóttir and Íbbagoggur
Artwork Layout by Elín Edda Þorsteinsdóttir
Cover Art by Þorsteinn Cameron
Texts by Brynja Hjálmsdóttir, Tómas Ævar Ólafsson and Tumi Árnason
