Quiet Lights Presents

mary lattimore & Gyða Valtýsdóttir

Sunday 23rd November
Live at St Luke’s
Doors: 13:00

Mary Lattimore is a Los Angeles-based harpist who has played on recordings by dozens of indie rock and experimental musicians, in addition to soundtrack work and her own solo releases. She typically augments her graceful harp improvisations with electronic effects, emphasizing the instrument’s ethereal qualities while conjuring up fascinating new sonic vistas. She became an in-demand session musician before releasing solo material in 2012. She later collaborated on albums and soundtracks with artists like Jeff Zeigler and Maxwell August Croy, and released music on well-regarded labels like Thrill Jockey and Ghostly International. By 2018, her solo material had begun to incorporate guitar, keyboard, Theremin, and other instruments, with albums like 2020s Silver Ladders augmenting her ambient harp with a wide range of accompanying sounds. Collaboration remained at the heart of Lattimore’s work, showing up in the form of joint creations with Growing and Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan, as well as contributions from members of Slowdive, the Cure, and others on her 2023 album Goodbye, Hotel Arkada.

Gyða Valtýsdóttir is a multi-instrumentalist, classically trained cellist, singer, producer, composer & improviser. She has been active as a musician since her early teens as a founding member of the experimental pop group múm. Classically trained, she has made music for films, theater, and dance performances, and has collaborated with established artists including Kronos Quartet, Aaron and Bryce Dessner, Josephine Foster, Damien Rice, Dustin O’Halloran, Colin Stetson, Kjartan Sveinsson, and Ragnar Kjartansson, just to name few. Gyða received the prestigious Nordic Council Music Prize 2019 for her music and performance, and her distinct vocals and instrumental inventiveness were described as “highly unique & captivating”. Her album Epicycle (2017) and Epicycle II (2020) both won Album of the Year at the Icelandic Music Award in the open category, as well as her first album with her own compositions, Evolution (2018), which also received a nomination for the Nordic Music Council Prize. For her latest album Ox (2021) Gyða was awarded as Producer of the Year at the Icelandic Music Award.