Amiina Kurr by: Steve Scully Mon:30-Jul-07 Label: Ever Year: 2007 WB rating 74 out of 100

What Kurr lacks in lasting emotional effect it makes up for in glorious, vivid, immediate beauty. Rather than a piece of work that inspires tears of joy or rapturous, love-induced embraces, Amiina’s debut album is one for the musical aesthetes: meticulously-crafted and textured, it is a collection of melodic soundscapes, more akin to a superficial, visual panorama than an intense investigation of the soul, humanity, or any such subjects of philosophical thought.

Musically the album is immediately interesting for its lack of string-based tracks; for a band who made their name through being Sigur Ros’ string section, this is a bold move. Rather than relying on their god-given/school-hardened talents as classical musicians, these four young women continue to broaden their musical horizons, stepping behind guitars, pianos, glockenspiels, bells and musical saws to create a sound wholly of their own making.

Amiina are essentially a melodic group. While post-rock instrumental groups like Mono create melodic music with traditional rock instrumentation and a penchant for ear-splitting crescendos, Amiina’s is a subtler sound, but born of no less grand a vision. Using such a vast array of instruments, their classically-inspired tracks have a modern, avant-garde/experimental edge, with a slight whiff of genius: every instrument here except for the marching-drum beat on ‘Lori’ is played by the women themselves. Such a convergence of sensibilities shines through in tracks like ‘Rugla’, where the prominent classical string part is offset by the wail of a musical saw and some quiet, indecipherable (at least to my non-Icelandic ears) vocal chanting.

With their subtleties in mind, it is perhaps more precise to liken Amiina to modern experimental, minimalist composers like Arvo Part; they seem to revel, rather than in the popular-song structure, in the perfection of one sound or part, such as the glockenspiel that rounds out the playful and uplifting ‘Seoul’, or the whistling in the conclusion to ‘Hilli’. Indeed, in the latter, we again see Amiina’s more traditional sound contrasted with their more experimental: it is effectively a folk song, complete with mandolin (if my ears serve me correctly), vocal murmurings and the re-occurrence of the musical saw. In one of the album’s stand-out tracks, ‘Bláfeldur’, Amiina show off their musical ability even more with beautifully layered and textured brass harmonies. While subtle and minimalist in terms of the ‘size’ and dynamics of the music itself, Amiina are, conversely, as grandiose as any of their contemporaries in terms of wide-reaching instrumentation.

Nevertheless, despite Amiina’s undeniably-extensive musical ambit, Kurr is a somewhat frustrating album. Whilst immediately gratifying in an aesthetic and technical sense, there is an uneasy sensation that accompanies Kurr, and grows with every ring of a wine glass or wail of a saw: perhaps Amiina are focused too much on their own concept of music, and not taking stock of the audience’s prospective response. It is undoubtedly impressive that Amiina are adept at creating lovely sounds from musical and non-musical instruments alike, but sometimes there’s an inkling that they would be more suited persistence with melodic tracks like the aforementioned ‘Rugla’ rather than indulging in their left-of-field, tedious, experimental fantasies, such as the over-long ‘Bolga’.

The reaction to this album can only really be as intensely emotive as the music itself. Whereas Kurr has an inherent grace, there is little here that is transcendent or profoundly effective. Opting for quiet charm rather than power, Amiina have succeeded in creating as cohesive and sonically-pleasing an album as you’re likely to hear, but Kurr  is far from the masterpiece they seemed to promise.