The Reykjavík Arts Festival is going on this week and I filled two more slots on my Icelandic musician bingo card. The first was a performance by Hildur Guðnadóttir and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Hildur is the artist-in-residence at this year’s festival, hosting multiple events throughout the two-week program.

Her concert was the first time I’d been in the main Eldborg hall at Harpa, and I was way up in the third-level cheap seats, which let me take in the full view of the space. Of the various events she was involved in this week, I was particularly interested in this one because it was focused on Hildur’s scoring work, including pieces from the films Joker and Tár, and billed as an event where she would discuss her work and influences. What I hadn’t fully thought through ahead of time was that (of course) that part would be in Icelandic. So, I didn’t get much from that, but the performance was still great and I was happy to experience Eldborg.

I also attended Fischersund: A Night of Scent & Music, a really unique concert combining sound, visuals, and scent. Fischersund is a perfumery and artist collective founded by Jónsi of Sigur Rós. They create scents based upon specific memories or elements of the Icelandic landscape. All the attendees got a small vial of Faux Flora No. 1, which is meant to invoke a plant’s lifecycle, and we were instructed to spray it at a coordinated time. Other scents were diffused into the room throughout the performance, including one moment where someone carrying a giant bouquet of flowers, doused in additional perfumes, wandered through the crowd.

Musically, it felt mostly like a Sigur Rós concert, but in a small venue with high-concept visuals and perfumery mixed in. There were a few production glitches that broke the spell, but if anything that only proved that they have achieved such a high level of immersion for the bulk of the show.