Kristin Anna

At the age of 18, Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir left behind a relatively normal teenage life in Reykjavik to live in the remote Icelandic countryside, recording and performing as a founding member of the psychedelic folk band múm. Classically trained as a pianist, she held down a vital, shifting role as singer and instrumentalist, playing the accordion, bass, piano and banjo. After several years of touring and 3 internationally noted albums, she quietly disappeared into a dusty attic and reemerged as Kría Brekkan, a solo artist, with the subtly powerful debut 7" Wildering (After Hours). Since this rebirth, Kristín Anna has performed internationally in music and visual arts contexts, debuting as Kría Brekkan at the Stone in New York, later touring with Animal Collective and the Icelandic band Stórsveit Nix Noltes, and appearing more recently at MOMA and PS1, ATP England and the Clockwork Gallery. Available recordings have been limited, but never disappointing. Another 7" EP, Uterus Water was issued through Paw Tracks in 2010, and a collaboration with Animal Collective's Avey Tare called Pullhair Rubeye, also on Paw Tracks. In 2008 Kría Brekkan self-released Apotropaíosong Armor, a strange and beautiful EP, featuring the entrancing song "Solush"… but only a few sought-after copies circulated. 
 
In the Spring of 2013 Kristín Anna made the journey from Iceland to the Mohave Desert in California to record a site-specific piece for Women's Work Recordings. This mysteriously beguiling work, aptly titled Howl, comes as close to an abstract painting as any music can, or perhaps it is figurative, using the voice as charged brush, giving life to a range of ethereal wonders. The craftswoman in this case appears within and without, and plays with relaxed distance and total spontaneity, thereby delivering a highly intimate and sometimes uncanny effect. The length and format of the work (a double LP) invites the listener to enter into the space created, walk about, look around or look within, suggesting that perhaps now is the time to perform a needed ritual or unfold a delicate thought long held in the back of one's mind. 
 
Howl is being offered as a limited edition 180 gram vinyl double LP and will be released by Vinyl Factory Records (England) in collaboration with USA-based Women’s Work Recordings.