Gisli Gunnarsson 🇮🇸 - Árstíðir (single)

We’re generally trying to feature new releases, but we’re going to jump back a year to one I somehow missed, courtesy of Icelandic multi-instrumentalist Gisli Gunnarsson. Regular readers will know I take particular pleasure in writing about a multi-instrumentalist, for reasons I’ve never quite worked out.

‘Árstíðir’ was released this time last year and obviously we have previously featured the Icelandic chamber folk band Árstíðir’ name meaning “Seasons”, and if you’ve somehow missed their famous German train station performance, that’s your homework sorted.

But back to this track. Gísli reflects:

“Mortality, especially that of loved ones, is something I believe everyone struggles to come to terms with. With this track, I was expressing that struggle, trying to find beauty in it by viewing it through the lens of the seasons and their cycle of death and rebirth.”

You can hear that intention immediately. It opens with a gentle acoustic guitar passage that sounds very post-rock in its patient, intimate and unhurried opening, before gradually expanding as the Lyra String Quartet enter the frame. The piece blooms with a simple melodic idea carrying it forward, making it effortlessly listenable, before an intense orchestral swell closes things out.

If anything, my only complaint is that I’d happily have stayed in that final passage a little longer, though perhaps that’s the whole point of writing about seasons: eventually, they insist on changing whether you’re ready or not.

Release Date: 28th February 2025

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