Skuli Sverrisson: Seria II

With so much wordless, incidental music floating by us in our everyday lives, it’s easy to forget what it feels like to hear instrumental material with any serious magnetic pull. Most of it passes for “respectable” or “not dull” or some such vanilla compliment. Icelandic multi-instrumentalist Skuli Sverrisson, known primarily as a four-stringed sideman outside of his homeland, has managed to wring the most delicately powerful music from the same old 12 tones over his 14-year solo career. This album’s predecessor, Seria, raked up numerous accolades, and Seria II doesn’t disappoint in the slightest. Caught up in a beautiful limbo between film scores and world music, Sverrisson and his group spin gold from repeated cycles. The personnel remain largely the same from the previous album, except this time there is no Laurie Anderson. He thanks her in the liner notes, so perhaps she was just busy. Highly recommended. . . to anyone.