Publication: Tore Størvold: Dissonant Landscapes: Music, Nature, and the Performance of Iceland

Tore Størvold: Dissonant Landscapes: Music, Nature, and the Performance of Iceland is now available from Wesleyan UP
More information here.

Iceland has attained a strong presence in the world through its musical culture, with images of the nation being packaged and shipped out in melodies, harmonies, and rhythms. What ‘Iceland’ means for people, both at home and abroad, is shaped by music and its ability to animate notions of nature and nationality. 

 This book intervenes into stereotypical accounts of Icelandic music as ‘arising’ from a wild landscape. Probing the relationship between music and the Icelandic landscape, we find a more complex story. Contemporary music on the island registers and reacts to the cultural dissonance that has followed in the wake of the 2008 economic crash, the surge in nature-based tourism, the expansion of energy industries, and global environmental crises.

 In six chapters that range from discussions of indie rock ballads to ‘Nordic noir’ television music, Dissonant Landscapes describes the capacity of musical expression to transform ideas about nature and nationality on the northern edges of Europe.