Áskell MÁSSON
Til Lifsins (To Life)
Music 1967-98. including Gna (The Goddess)
Áskell Másson
and Steve van Oosterhoot (percussion)
Margrétar Pálmadóttur (voice) with cello, guitar, childrens
choir.
AC Classics SMK 14 [47
mins]
This disc can be purchased from the importer:
Silver Service CDs, 14 Balmoral Avenue, Shepshed, Loughborough, Leicestershire,
LE12 9PX
Tel +44(0) 1509 829301 Fax +44(0) 1509 829302
e-mail
sales@red-hedgehog.co.uk
This CD emanates from Iceland and much of the liner material is untranslated,
so we are not given full, intelligible information about the instruments
and various tracks. The music by Áskell Másson (b 1953) is
much of it improvised, and dates back to when the 'composer' was 14. He purports
to explore the lyrical potential of various percussion instruments, and much
of it is gentle, indeed soporific.
The text puts it firmly into the fashionable (and sometimes lucrative)
'spiritual' bracket, and I suppose it should be regarded as easy-listening
World Music from the North. The solo finger drumming on the darabuka
[left] is pleasing, but
soon overstays its welcome. There are some lively contributions from a girls'
choir singing in unison. No rating attempted.
Peter Grahame Woolf
