The last time we encountered When ‘Airy met Fairy (Iceland’s Thorunn Egilsdóttir and Luxembourger Mike Koster) it was last December, with a strange, sad Christmas song, ‘Blanket of Sorrow’, in the video for which Thorunn was cooking Christmas Dinner in a 1970’s style apartment that they own. The dinner turned out to be a strange affair and it is possible the people who attended it weren’t even there; rather they were in her imagination, prompting Thorunn to rummage about in presents, seeking solace in materialism. Well, that’s one interpretation anyway.
In ‘Under the Snow’ they’re back in the same apartment, at a surreal party in which a John Cassavetes lookalike, sporting Steve Buscemi’s eyes (one of them blackened) cavorts around the apartment as if it’s a social for the witches’ coven in Rosemary’s Baby. When ‘Airy met Fairy always produce top-class videos but not usually as dramatic as this one. That’s partly because they’re skilfully made by Raphael Kindig, while Thorunn’s art director sister often helps out as well although she doesn’t feature on this particular one.
As for the music, well that is traditionally stripped right back with this duo, which famously abhors over-production. At least that’s the case for half the song although they do let themselves go a little in the latter half of this one
Apart from that I haven’t a clue what it is about. It’s all a bit ethereal and few voices match that requirement better than Thorunn’s.
Another single, the lead one from the album, will follow on 11th March, apparently a reimagining of Rufus Wainwright’s ‘Going to a Town’ which they recorded without listening to it first. The album itself, their second, surfaces on 8th May and touches on subjects such as unrequited love, loneliness and isolation, and social media obsession.
Not much new there then, but as Frank Carson used to say, “It’s the way I tell ‘em”.
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