Valgeir Sigurðsson

The County

BY Slavko BucifalPublished Jan 8, 2020

7
Something is very wrong at "The Dairy Farm," or at least this is the sentiment Valgeir Sigurðsson evokes with his soundtrack for The County, directed by Grímur Hákonarson. The track is a thunderous piece combining filthy tape loops, distorted synths and sounds that are all off-kilter, playing like a score to a dystopian nightmare.
 
The conundrum here is that the actual film is a present-day human story, and the trailer is full of lighthearted orchestral plucks suggesting a rather humorous tone. This idea is strengthened by a clip of a female protagonist slinging metaphorical and literal shit against the male-dominated cooperative farming folk.
 
To be sure, Sigurðsson has an outstanding musical pedigree; in addition to running his own label, he's released excellent solo work and produced for Sigur Rós, Björk and Feist, among others. So perhaps he is entitled to release his version of the soundtrack, with his signature tense orchestral layers and electronic treatments painting a mostly eerie atmosphere.
 
Sigurðsson himself confirms that majority of the songs on The County were not used in the film. This disparity does not make the soundtrack disagreeable, just odd. Taken on its own, Sigurðsson once again demonstrates a mastery of electronic manipulation, creating interesting and captivating textures, but taken in context, viewers of the film may not find the soundtrack all that recognizable.
(Bedroom Community)

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