Icelandic cellist, singer, and composer Gyða Valtysdóttir, a founder of the band múm and 2019 winner of the prestigious Nordic Council Music Prize, releases Epicycle II. Gyða Valtýsdóttir came to prominence with electronic experimentalists múm, the lauded Icelandic group leading the charge in the country’s fertile underground scene in the early 00s, rightfully gaining international recognition. She left the band to pursue her studies as a cellist; gaining a twofold Master’s degree from Musik Akademie, Basel, both as a classical player and a free-improvisational one. Since then she has journeyed with a colorful palette of collaborators, including The Kronos Quartet, Josephine Foster, Damien Rice, Colin Stetson, Jónsi (of Sigur Ros fame), Skúli Sverrisson, Ólöf Arnalds, Ben Frost, Aaron & Bryce Dessner (from The National) and visual-artist Ragnar Kjartansson. To name but a few.

REVIEWS:

Some of the musicians, like her fellow art-pop renegades Ólöf Arnalds and Jónsi, emphasize her crystalline, eldritch voice. Others, including Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Daníel Bjarnason, deploy her cello in yearning lines and voluptuous waves. Altogether, the album offers otherworldly transport.

-- The New Yorker

Epicycle II is a wonderful experience and a tantalizing look into the future of experimental music collaboration.

-- San Francisco Classical Voice

Epicycle II is her crowning achievement to date.

-- A Closer Listen

From atmospheric micro-polyphony to heart-rending moments of electronic intimacy, the music is interesting and powerfully drawn.

-- Music City Review

A deeply cinematic score at times, this album is often transporting with great lift, giving the listener long opportunities to soar, bird-like, over the Icelandic landscape and beyond, for the most part leaving us safely and gently deposited on the earthly shore.

-- The Whole Note