The latest project featuring Icelandic composer and Academy Award winner Hildur Guðnadóttir, experimental group Osmium self-titled debut is out June 20.
Imagine entering the jungle. Dark, suffused with the heavy humidity of the passing monsoon. Outlines of palm trees conjure up ghosts from ancient times or a prehistoric life form that disobeys identification. Menacing and overwhelming, it exudes the vital energy of survival.
One would immediately think of AI-generated deepfakes, but the cinematic power of Osmium — which comprises Iceland’s very own Hildur Guðnadóttir, English composer Sam Slater, American-British producer James Ginzburg and Indonesian vocalist Rully Shabara — does not need augmented reality. So direct and to-the-point is its message.
Considering the scope of work behind each artist, Osmium looks (and sounds) formidable. Like other collaborations of its kind, Osmium came initially out of a live performance. Debuting at the Kraków-based experimental contemporary music festival Unsound, the nameless ad hoc collective ultimately transformed into a project with a fixed concept as the then-three-piece group found its fourth member in Rully Shabara.
“It was the suggestion of Mat [Schulz], who runs the Unsound festival, that we do something with Rully when we mentioned the project,” starts James. “After the performance, we ended up recording a single album in just one day of studio time and then recorded vocals six months later because Rully was in Indonesia,” he continues.
Playfully, the members picked a name that seemed in keeping with the sound. “We went through a series of incredibly bad names,” recalls Hildur. “We kinda just ended up formulating what the band was. It’s a form of a metal band, and the sound is very heavy. So one of the jokes was, ‘What would be the heaviest metal?’” she explains.
Organised chaos
Though meant as a joke, Osmium, known as one of the heaviest chemical elements, succinctly sums up the band’s sound. Juxtaposing the mechanical sound of customised string instruments and the shamanic, werewolf-like vocals of Shabara, Osmium’s record summons an unstoppable force of mixed origin.
Random images, such as a lava stream and the roaring traffic of a megapolis, come to mind. A man-made mechanical wilderness coexisting in a turbulent harmony. Here, the vocals are a major animating force.
“[Rully] brings the human element and the performance to the band which elevates the whole thing because he is such a magnificent singer,” agrees Hildur.
Although its primordial low-frequency rhythms might seem dark and menacing, this music has a strange vital energy that keeps it going even when they’ve run out of steam. Ultimately, at the core is a survival drive, the manifestation of instincts that has ensured the existence of humankind.
Hildur admits the physicality of the compositions: “The music is so physical and so experiential,” she says. Explaining the nitty-gritty behind one of the customised instruments used in the project, one of the many devices featured on the record is a self-oscillating drum, invented by Sam in collaboration with KOMA Elektronik.
“There are lots of uncontrollable elements there. And then we thought it was kind of interesting as a juxtaposition to have an element opposing this unruliness with extreme precision. We have these robotic elements — the beaters that are synchronised, so all the beaters are attached to the instruments. They are all in an extreme and complete sync. These beaters cut the feedback precisely,” says Hildur.
Heavy bliss
Not everything goes smoothly, especially when the creative process involves custom-built instruments. Having booked three days at a studio in Berlin, the band ended up fixing Hildur’s halldorophone, a cello-inspired instrument designed by Halldór Úlfarsson and a frequent MO in Hildur’s work.
“The halldorophone is a complex electro-acoustic instrument, which is something like a cello that can self-resonate, and impose feedback on itself, with sympathetic strings, magnetic resonators and internal speakers,” explains James. “Something in its control circuits blew up, which rendered its electronics inoperable. We didn’t end up using her main instrument, but she had an older one somewhere in storage which she pulled out and we just about made it work enough.”
Despite all the technical troubles, which in James’s words, “Would have driven most people mad,” the spirits in the studio were high. “What I’ve noticed about Hildur is that even when things are going so catastrophically wrong, she is so used to salvaging the situation,” he notes.
Pondering the body of her work dealing with difficult themes, Hildur suggests there is a correlation between intense creative outcome and cordiality. “Some of the music that I played throughout my life is quite intense and can be challenging to perform and to listen to. Often the heavier the music is, the lighter the atmosphere in which it is created. Of all of my collaborations throughout many years, this is one of the most lighthearted, but heaviest-sounding.”
Similarly, James admits that joy was at the core of the creative process. “It’s strange to say that… It’s interesting to talk about the idea of centring enjoyment in this project because the musical output here sounds rather menacing and intense. But the actual core of the interaction is very light, with a lot of joking and laughter in the process,” he says.
Ultimately, everything is intertwined, Hildur claims. That is, one’s attitude, creative process and outcome. “The more lighthearted and joyful you can be when experimenting, the more fun it is. The more fun it is, the more patience you have to stick with this when it’s not working and you have to go back and fix every little element again. That’s the way I try to approach my work, especially the work that’s experimental in nature.”
Osmium is out now on vinyl, available for purchase at osmiumosmium.bandcamp.com, and on streaming platforms.
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