The Icelandic band Sigur Rós have announced a new album titled Odin’s Raven Magic. It based on an orchestral work that was debuted live in 2002, will be released on December 4, 2020. Also, the band released the first track called Dvergmál from upcoming record.
Our new album Odin’s Raven Magic will be released on the 4th December. Pre-save here: https://t.co/JbGLcPvVFI pic.twitter.com/XsXIeGp9qN
— sigur rós (@sigurros) October 23, 2020
Sigur Rós collaborated with Icelandic music legend Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson and Icelandic musician Steindór Andersen for the upcoming album. Speaking of it, Hilmarsson said;
Hrafnagaldur Óðins [Odin’s Raven Magic] has lots of interpretation and implications that fire up the imagination… It’s a very visual poem, with images all about falling down, and a world freezing from north to south. It was an apocalyptic warning. Perhaps the people of the time felt it in their skins. Today, of course, Iceland is involved in environmental issues surrounding hydro-electric power and the destruction of the highlands. We are being warned again.
Odin’s Raven Magic About
Composed in the 14th or 15th century Odin’s Raven Magic is an Icelandic poem in the ancient Edda tradition (Edda – a term that describes two Icelandic manuscripts which together are the main sources of Norse mythology and Skáldic poetry) its anonymous author clearly had an intimate knowledge of the Edda literature and mythology which alludes to a number of pagan motifs which are now lost. The poem recounts a great banquet held by the gods in Valhalla while they were absorbed in their feasting, ominous signs appeared that could foretell the end of the worlds of the gods and men.
The album ‘Odin’s Raven Magic’ is an orchestral collaboration between Sigur Rós, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, Steindór Andersen and Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir which premiered 18 years ago at the Barbican Centre in London and is now finally almost two decades later being released. The performance honours the poem, dramatic and beautiful, classical and contemporary. A stone marimba was built especially for the performance by Páll Guðmundsson.
You can watch the track music video filmed and recorded in Paris on September 2004 below.
You can check the tracklisting in full below.
1. Prologus
2. Alföður orkar
3. Dvergmál
4. Stendur æva
5. Áss hinn hvíti
6. Hvert stefnir
7. Spár eða spakmál
8. Dagrenning
