Ragnar

What happens when a soundtrack is taken from a film and given a life on its own? When two Icelandic composers Páll Ragnar Pálsson and Eðvarð Egilsson finished scoring Quake, a psychological family drama, they were not ready to stop just there. What followed was a voyage of musical discoveries as they allowed for new ideas to enter the creative space. Just as a plant spread itself over the whole garden, cues from the movie scenes become independent, mature songs. The soundscape dwells on the border of acoustic and electronic and drifts from song-based to textural, from atmospheric to cinematic with lustrous cello in the foreground.

Named by Musical America as the 2018 'Composer of the Year', Grammy-winning composer Mason Bates is widely renowned for his pioneering practice of creating music for conventional performing forces enhanced by electronic sounds. Of the two works presented in this remarkable album, Mass Transmission—in its world premiere recording—is a particularly winning example of Bates’ use of 'electronica', blended here with music for mixed choir and organ. Sirens, lacking electronica, still achieves mesmerizing vocal effects through its complex scoring for 12-part a cappella choir.

Millions love the hit television show Vikings - but how many fans know that its main character, Ragnar, is based on an actual Viking king whose ambitious and terrifying exploits have been legend since the ninth century?