Collapsing Into Nordic Affect's Raindamage

There's something about this album, the second by the Icelandic chamber ensemble Nordic Affect, that made me collapse a little, a kind of swoon almost, even into that word: raindamage. It evoked for me not something that would lead to a call to your insurance company, but the image of a leaf, bedraggled by rain drops but still clinging to a branch, the last one there. Or pounding sheets of winter rain seen through a picture window, moving across a field, one stalk of growth bent double and vibrating from the impact, the rest standing tall. A childhood memory from the Pyrénées also comes to mind, of watching a massive storm cover the valley below, lightning doubling itself in huge solar reflectors. It's that kind of record, one to send you spinning within yourself.

Raindamage is also the first piece on the album, a composition by Valgeir Siguròsson for violin, viola, cello and electronics, which perfectly combines the physicality of the plucked and bowed strings with the abstraction of the synthesized sounds. It's brief but epic, which can also be said of the other Siguròsson piece, Antigravity, which is solely electronic and descends into a space most wondrous dark.

Two other composers are included, Ùlfur Hansson and Hlynur Aòils Vilmarsson, and in each case they've composed one work for chamber instruments and one for electronics. The combinations of sounds in all cases evoke the interaction between nature's creations and those assembled by man, a gnarled vine ensnaring a power cable. [:n:] by Vilmarsson features the full complement of Nordics - the three strings and harpsichord - and seems to ask a series of unanswered questions, limning them with shimmering harmonics. Vilmarsson's electronic piece, NOA::EMS, hearkens back to the test lab sounds of pioneers like Manny Ghent and Ilhan Mimaroglu, without seeming at all experimental. It's a portrait of sound, in sound.

Hansson, who also created the wonderful White Mountain album in 2013, adds voices to his acoustic composition, Þýð, to spine-tingling effect. He also gets even more physical with the string instruments, gathering them all up into violent skirls of sound - you can feel the horsehair bow catching on the strings. Remember to breathe while listening. The playing by Halla Steinunn Stefásdóttir (violin), Gudrún Hrund Hardadóttir (viola), and Hanna Loftsdóttir, is almost frighteningly assured here, as it is throughout. Harpischordist Gudrún Óskarsdóttir is also excellent. Skin Continuum, Hansson's electronic work, folds an Uchwa Daiko drum into its soundscape, ratcheting up the simmering tension. Then it ends, as all pieces of music must, but it will last in your memory.

You will be left wanting more in any case, so head back to their gorgeous 2015 release, Clockworking, or catch them on their first U.S. tour. Maybe I'll see you at National Sawdust on April 19th!

Note: The word "raindamage" apparently comes from a "poetic fantasia" by Angela Rawlings called A Wide Slumber for Lepidopterists - worth investigating!