Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson & Sigur Rós
Biography
HILMAR ORM HILMARSSON
Hilmarsson, who with over 20 soundtracks to his name is Iceland's most prolific film composer. In 1995 he won European Film Composer of the Year for his work on the Oscar nominated 'Children of Nature', for which he also collaborated with Fridriksson and 'Angels of the Universe' writer, Einar Mar Gudmundsson.
Here his work is given almost unbearable poignancy by the knowledge that not only is the movie's doomed protagonist the writer's real life brother, but also a personal friend of Hilmarsson. His Soundtrack to 'Childeren of Nature' has been released on Touch.
SIGUR ROS
Formed in January, 1994, Sigur Ros are an Icelandic four-piece band who have rapidly shot to international success. Although until the release of the single 'Svefn-G-Englar' on FatCat in 1999, the band had remained unreleased outside of their native country, they had previously released 3 albums in Iceland (all on the Smekkleysa label) - 'Von', their debut in 1997; a remix, 'Vonbrig', a year later; and in 1999, the awesome new 'Agitis Byrjun', which was re-released on FatCat, and was voted as Iceland's 'album of the century'.
A second FatCat 12" arrived in the shape of 'Ny Batteri' in 2000, including two tracks which featured in the soundtrack of the deeply-moving 'Angels Of The Universe' (released by FatCat in autumn 2001), a movie from Oscar-nominated Icelandic film director Fridrik Thor Fridriksson.