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Umfjöllun
Um plötuna hefur verið fjallað í: The Quietus, Bandcamp Daily – Best Experimental, Bandcamp Daily – Best Contemporary Classical, Planet Hugill, David Presents, Lost in a Sea of Sound, Cookylamoo, A closer listen, Salt Peanuts og Foxy Digitalis þar sem myndband Sam T. Rees við fyrsta smáskífulagið var frumflutt. Þá hafa kaflar af plötunni verið leiknir þrisvar sinnum á BBC 3, nokkrum sinnum á Resonance FM, á WFMU, Noods Radio, KGNU, CHMU, og SVP Radio.
Nokkrar tilvitnanir:
“The effect is to feel like one is in the hands of the weather itself. […] Witty, inventive, unusual and captivating.” -Johny Lamb fyrir The Quietus
“Whatever the aura, Landvættirnar fjórar consistently entices due to Gunnarsson’s attention to compositional detail, with each moment in his musical timeline serving a purpose.” – Marc Masters fyrir Bandcamp Daily – Best Experimental,
“On the first encounter, it feels primitive in its artlessness, but it quickly becomes clear that not only are these sounds—deftly performed by Steinalda, an ensemble Gunnarsson assembled for this project—meticulously plotted, but once the ears can adapt to this charmingly odd sound-world, the music is flush with folksy melodic fragments, crystalline counterpoint, and polyrhythm. It recalls some ancient Japanese folk traditions in terms of its lean austerity, but in the end, it occupies a space all of its own.” -Peter Margasak fyrir Bandcamp Daily – Best Contemporary Classical
“The music is not descriptive, instead, it draws you into this world and each movement feels like a tone picture. Not in the symphonic sense, but more related to the music that comes from graphic scores, that each line, each instrument is a representation of a concept, an idea, and that their formal relationship is less to do with correct classical construction than instinct and freedom.” -Robert Hugill fyrir Planet Hugill,
“Une sacré découverte !” -David F fyrir David Presents
“Landvættirnar fjórar is a complete outlier, an album made with curious instrumentation that sounds like an avant folk tale.” -Richard Allen fyrir A closer listen
“Look into the natural setting placed before us. Understand or lives in brief moments, while the world around exists in epochs. An average size tree might equal the length of a single human existence, river contours or mountain ranges multiply this factor exponentially. […] The sounds of Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson help connect these vast blocks of time with present day. An orchestra of primordial essence, tones and rhythms reaching past future directions. We listen in this moment only to hear the symphonic cacophony of the mode of being. A slow and most patient march into the distant future lying beyond average lifespans. Strings vibrate with quirky like motions of long legged birds stepping across shallow water. ” – Robert Rattle fyrir Lost in a Sea of Sound
“Men det merkelige med denne musikken, er at man på mystisk vis blir trukket inn i den – i alle fall blir jeg det – og selv om mye kan høres ut som amatørisme, er det hele veien en nerve i det som fremføres som er fascinerende. Noen vil kanskje sammenligne det vi får høre som noe buddistiske munker holder på med, eller noe fra en fremmed stamme i frika eller Amasonas, og allikevel er dette musikk skapt og fremført på Island – langt unna de stedene man kan tenke seg at dette kommer fra.” -Jan Granlie fyrir Salt Peanuts
Aðrar tilvitnanir:
“. . . feels like being welcomed into an eccentric, remote village where residents have freely mashed together ancienttraditions and newly invented customs to devise their own rustic utopia.” –Nick Storring um plötuna Sinfóníu haustið 2020 fyrir MusicWorks
“A mesmerising set; absolutely gorgeous music [. . .] deeply integrated way of composing; layers pulling in different directions, astonishingly novel textures and sounds. We have something that appears to effortlessly bypass many conventions . . .” -Ed Pinsent um Vorlag/Sumarlag og Skartamannafélagið fyrir Sound Projector í janúar 2020
Annað:
Smá samantekt um tónleikaferð amerísku hljómsveitar Guðmundar Steins – The USAClangers
Bókin The Digital Score eftir Craig Vear sem fjallar meðal annars um Kvartett númer 7 eftir umsækjanda.
Grein Margrétar Elísabetar Ólafsdóttur fyrir A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries
Grein Atla Ingólfssonar Skandall í Árbæjarkirkju sem fjallar um óperuna Einvaldsóð eftir umsækjanda. En þar segjir meðal annars:
“Hér var flutt ópera af wagnerískri lengd, vídd og dýpt…og eins og það eigi ekki að spyrjast út til þeirra sem hafa hæst um óperuformið.”
Doktorsritgerð Ryan Ross Smith um hreyfinótur þar sem meðal annars er talað um verk umsækjanda en líka mikið um Sláturhreyfinguna almennt. Þetta efni kemur oft fram í öðrum skrifum og fyrirlestrum Ryan Ross Smith sem og annarra sem fjalla um þetta efni, m.a. á hinni árlegu TENOR ráðstefnu.