The Iceland native’s sparse, delicate, fractal music exists within two worlds: dark and magical as Iceland’s permanight folklore and (though beatless) as deeply sonic and intense as nostalgic electronics.

Photo: Courtesy of the artist

A long-term, globally recognised scholar of solo theremin, Hekla Magnúsdóttir uses her instrument as an otherworldly and highly evocative siren-call. A spectral, wailing, howling, lamenting yearning second-voice that underpins a soft vocal delivery, as if her studio had been haunted with a chorus of ghostly backing singers.

Hekla’s debut album – Á, released by Phantom Limb – was written and self-recorded in her home studio in Berlin around her newborn son’s daycare schedule. On return to Iceland, her music continued on a theme of imagined glacier horror scores, the mystically imagined Sprungur EP, culminating in most 2022’s Xiuxiuejar album. Hekla receives regular accolades for her filmscore work and performs locally and internationally both solo and as a part of multiple ensembles, and is a very active part of Iceland’s music scene. She uses and teaches workshops about graphic scores and the theremin.

  • Xiuxiuejar, by Hekla

  • Xiuxiuejar, by Hekla