hekla’s music exists singularly. a one-off talent, emerging from no particular scene, ascribing to no particular rules.
as a creative tool, the theremin - bizarre, unique, and rarely heard - can be expressive, intuitive and highly adaptable. in hekla’s hands, her instrument covers an enormous range, from skittering birdsong of high frequency chirrups and chirps, to grinding, tectonic sub-bass. we are given the throbbing, apocalyptic dread of muddle and the baroque beauty of traditional icelandic hymn “heyr himna smi∂,,ur” in sequential tracks on the album’s a-side. appropriately, she also writes that the album title - Á - is similarly multifaceted in her native icelandic: “a river is an á and also it means ouch like when you hurt yourself, and also when you put something on top of something you put it á (on) something.”