Kjartan Sveinsson Releases The Last Farm Soundtrack
Multi-instrumentalist, composer and former Sigur Rós member Kjartan Sveinsson has released his first commercially available soundtrack, his accompaniment to Rúnar Rúnarsson’s acclaimed 2004 short film The Last Farm. Enduring isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic – doubly so with a broken knee after capsizing on ice in Reykjavik- Sveinsson hopes to reach out by releasing this soundtrack.
On the release, Sveinsson says, “I’d planned to release my film music as one album. But for one reason or another, different parts of life got in the way, and it didn’t happen. But with the world as it is because of COVID, I decided to release something.”
The soundtrack, comprised of five exquisite instrumentals for string quartet, are a perfect match for director Rúnarsson’s similarly concise, delicately haunting and heart-rendering portrait of love and loss. The mood is sombre but comforting too, depicting a refuge in nature, away from the maddening crowds, and a reminder of our mortality and the degrees of loneliness we endure.
Sveinsson found the film, “very strong and surprising. And really moving.” The visual and sonic mood is sombre but comforting too, depicting a refuge in nature, away from the maddening crowds, and a reminder of our mortality and the degrees of loneliness we endure. Sveinsson admits he wasn’t thinking, “philosophically” when he decided to release this soundtrack. “But who knows, underneath, I might have been!”
The Last Farm is the first Sveinsson release in 2020.
String quartet for The Last Farm:
Gunnhildur Daðadóttir – violin
María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir – violin
Ólöf Júlía Kjartansdóttir – viola
Júlía Mogensen – cello
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