Songs for the End of the Day from Gienlyd (Denmark) and Myrkvi (Iceland)

Gienlyd (Denmark) – Balance (focus track from the EP Pusterum)

‘Pusterum’ – not an appealing title, it sounds like a medical procedure that involves an orifice. But the English translation of ‘Breathing space’ or, in Gienlyd’s case ‘Respite’ is much more like it. We all need it after all, and especially right now.

It’s Gienlyd’s debut EP and this is the focus track, called ‘Balance’, which if I remember was also the title of a song by Norway’s Maylen Rusti not so long ago, just to get the balance right in my reporting.

His objective was “an album of relaxing compositions made to give you a break from everyday stress and hustle and bustle” and indeed similar ones have been at the root of previously released work.

I can’t think of a better chill out artist than Gienlyd. His songs are based on the simple repetition of the same notes with minor variations and occasional tweaks that can be provided courtesy of instrumentation or field recordings. But those collections of notes are always melodic, indeed they are ‘hooks’ in their own little way and the variation might be as simple as adding one extra note or half a note.

So while aiding relaxation they aren’t going to send you off to sleep like counting sheep. You do become aware that you are being challenged to keep abreast of those variations.

It could be tedious but it never is.

It isn’t surprising that previous songs have been called ‘Daydream’ and ‘Highway Hypnosis’. They seem to be tailor made for the couch; the hypnotherapist’s, the psychoanalyst’s, perhaps even the dentists or for those soothing tracks you can listen to during your red eye flight across the Atlantic.

Try it now.

Find Gienlyd on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gienlyd/

Myrkvi (Iceland) – Sjálfsmynd (Self Image) (single/possible future album track)

A while back, Myrkvi, who’s gearing up towards releasing his third album, was ‘Completely Empty’ in a single that dealt with the devastating effects of loneliness.

The subject matter this time is ‘Sjálfsmynd’ which means self-image and must be the easiest Icelandic word that I’ve ever seen to translate. Self mind, yep, I get it.

To add some visual meat to the proceedings Myrkvi is seen in a contemplative pose which might be one of John Lennon wondering how to tell the other Beatles that he’s invested in an armaments factory that makes landmines with Yoko Ono.

And written a song called ‘Give war a chance’.

We often talk of sadness and depression in songs from all the Nordic countries that appear in these pages but Iceland is the really testing one, where in the (long) winter the imposing spectacle of Mount Esja which hovers over Reykjavik can be lost in the mists and low cloud for days on end as if it had vanished; days with four hours of light if you’re lucky. No wonder they celebrate the shortest day more intensely than Christmas.

And as Myrkvi reveals, ‘Sjálfsmynd’ “portrays an inner struggle: bleak verses spiral around a hollow self-image while the choruses pull us up from the depths, reminding us that when all is said and done, life is not bad, even though it may be unfair.” The song’s hook translates to “I’m trying my best”.

And there most certainly are hooks in there. And this is the happiest sounding Myrkvi song I can recall, courtesy of an underlying jangly piano riff that persists throughout but which is punctuated by occasional guitar reverb representing negative interjections in my interpretation.

In other words I see it the other way around, meaning that the essential starting point is positivism but which is threatened by negativity that can only be kept a distance and hopefully shot down like rogue missiles but which cannot be defeated completely.

Then the chorus becomes the celebration of those negative thoughts being defeated.

I don’t believe that’s the way Magnús Thorlacius intended it, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Find Myrkvi on:

Website: https://myrkvi.net/