I’m a little behind on this one, if truth be told, but I’m sure you’ll forgive me given everything gets so busy leading up to Christmas, even in semi-lockdown. And there’s a lovely story behind Blood Harmony too, as it’s a collaboration between the musical brother and sister partnership of Örn Eldjárn and Ösp Eldjárn – with some backing vocals from another sibling, Björk.
They both clearly have a rich musical past, having been brought up in a distinctly musical family and having played in musical projects for over twenty years, many of which were somewhat different from their instinctively folk influenced roots,
Now they’ve joined together to form Blood Harmony, which I guess is an appropriate name, and they released their 1st single this July, entitled ‘Summer Leaves’, shortly followed up by another track entitled ‘Wicked Heart’ in August. After a short gap they the released a a new track called ‘Draumsnillingar‘ in October.
Inevitably there’s a nice story behind the track too, as it was Ösp who wrote the track as a Christmas present for her Örn brother a few years ago, after vowing to only make ‘home-made’ gifts for her family. It’s clearly a priceless gift, and slightly less dangerous than the 6 litres of festive home-made scrumpy I made for one of my family a few years back.
Draumsnillingar is a delicately phrased and musical track, which appealed to me from the start of the acoustic guitar, folk infused opening. The vocal harmonies are particularly enticing, and it’s not afraid to soar away to ever increasing heights, which mirrors the lyrical meaning of the song, which encourages the listener to “follow your heart and to embrace life, both the joy and the sorrow in all its beauty”.
And not drown that sorrow in industrial strength home-made scrumpy, obviously.