Björk Sings from the Icelandic Songbook

December 1, 2023 12:08 PM

As filler material during their coverage of the 1991 Icelandic parliamentary elections, TV station Stöð 2 asked Björk to perform some jazz tunes with Tríó Guðmundar Ingólfssonar off their record Gling-gló. The trio had been asked by Icelandic public radio to record some old Icelandic standards and recruited the singer, who chose the 14 Icelandic songs, as well as a couple of foreign standards. The recording was then released as an album. Below the cut I'll include links to originals of the Icelandic songs, and here's one more TV performance from 1990 of Kata rokkar.

The trio was comprised of Guðmundur Steingrímsson on drums, Þórður Högnason on bass, and Guðmundur Ingólfsson on piano.

Here are the originals, in the same order as they appear on the Gling-gló album, with title first and performer second:

Gling-gló — Alfreð Clausen
Lukta-Gvendur — Sigrún Jónsdóttir & Alfreð Clausen
Kata rokkar — Erla Þorsteinsdóttir
Pabbi minn — Ingibjörg Þorbergs
Brestir og brak — Brynjólfur Jóhannesson & Karl Sigurðsson
Ástartöfrar — Sigrún Jónsdóttir
Bella símamær — Adda Örnólfs & Ólafur Briem
Litli tónlistarmaðurinn — Erla Þorsteinsdóttir
Það sést ekki sætari mey — Soffía Karlsdóttir
Bílavísur — Soffía Karlsdóttir & Tígulkvartettinn
Tondeleyó — Sigfús Halldórsson
Ég veit ei hvað skal segja — Soffía Karlsdóttir
Í dansi með þér — Ingibjörg Þorbergs & Marz-bræður
Börnin við tjörnina — Ingibjörg Þorbergs

And as a bonus, here's a playlist with a bootleg of a performance by Björk & Tríó Guðmundar Ingólfssonar at Hótel Borg.

posted by Kattullus (6 comments total)

The Wikipedia entry on the album has the full writing credits. Also, full disclosure, Brynjólfur Jóhannesson, one of the singers of Brestir og brak, is my great-grandfather.
posted by Kattullus at 12:11 PM on December 1, 2023 [8 favorites]

delightful!
posted by hydra77 at 1:16 PM on December 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Fantastic! Thanks, OP!
posted by Capt. Renault at 1:47 PM on December 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

I almost got to meet Björk a few years ago. I was in Iceland for a conference about biophilic design, which she was a big supporter of. One afternoon we split into two sessions in two rooms. One room was led by a Scandinavian government minister, the other by Björk. I had to go to the first one because of my work and have been sad about it ever since.
posted by doctornemo at 5:04 PM on December 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

Björk is just the best. Some artists you come across and every single time you think, "THAT! That's how you do it. That. Dammit that is good." No matter what she does she does it just so.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:53 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

So fantastic. As opposed to thinking oh, someone from outside of jazz singing jazz, I thought whoa, other jazz singers should do that.
posted by umbú at 9:45 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]