How To Start A Garden by Nanna
By- Lucy J
Though Iceland's indie-folk band Of Monsters and Men have not released a new album since 2019's FEVER DREAM, they continue to boast a Spotify count of over nine million monthly listeners. In 2017, they became the first Icelandic band in history to hit one billion streams across all songs on the platform, and in the past year, Little Talks, the lead single of their debut album My Head Is An Animal, reached one billion streams on its own. Since My Head Is An Animal, the band has gone on to release two more full-length albums and a five song EP, with their fourth studio album rumoured to be in its final stages of production. However, despite their quiet online presence, the individual band members have been anything but inactive in their time between releases.
Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir, lead singer and guitarist of the band, originally began her singing career as a solo artist under the name Songbird. It was out of her desire to amplify her acoustic sound that her bandmates were gradually added to the mix, forming the Of Monsters and Men seen today (specifically, a five-member band containing various instrumental backups including the glockenspiel, melodica, and trumpet alongside the more typical bass and percussion). However, amidst the chaos and confusion of the pandemic, Nanna returned to her roots with an indie-folk album fittingly named How To Start A Garden— released not under the Of Monsters and Men moniker, but simply as "Nanna."
The acoustic, stripped-down atmosphere of How To Start A Garden allows Nanna's voice to serve a different purpose than it ever has within the larger sound of Of Monsters and Men. The album's subject matter— revolving around loneliness, longing, and reflections on past relationships— combined with Nanna's soft vocals have led fans to draw comparisons to more well-known projects including Phoebe Bridgers' Punisher (2020), Taylor Swift's folklore (2020), and Lizzy McAlpine's five seconds flat (2022).
At its core, How To Start A Garden is strongly connected to the natural world, and not just when it comes to its title. The album opens with a quiet introduction, distant rain and bird noises filling up the extra background space. These wildlife soundtracks are interspersed throughout the eleven-track album, blending beautifully with the atmospheric acoustic instruments used in the majority of the project. Additionally, the lonely imagery evoked by many lyrics is strengthened by the countless references to outer space: the second track of the album, Sputnik, was named after the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth, and more of these cosmic references can be seen in lines including "But I need a little space, maybe outer space/Send me on a rocket to the moon," "Is there life on Mars and karaoke bars/And an awkward small talk by the bathroom stalls?", and "Well, I fell in a black hole, but I'm learning to make it a home."
The final track, Seabed, ends with a special treat that has not yet been seen in any of Nanna's public work, solo or otherwise— she sings the ending, a repeated mantra translating to "Winter cold, the hole so warm, she buries herself in snow/Dives into the weather cold, he sinks into the ocean/I lay up against my chin, soft is the moor/Walk now homeward bound and the ghost choir sings," in her native language of Icelandic. In various interviews, she states that this is one of her favourite parts of the album. The reason why becomes quickly clear to any new listeners: it is truly the perfect closer to an already breathtaking debut album, with Nanna's unexpected return to her Icelandic roots perfectly exemplifying the constant theme of growth present throughout.
Despite the themes of loneliness and isolation, How To Start A Garden feels anything but bleak (in fact, there are multiple songs that are quite sonically upbeat, Crybaby and Bloodclot / Andvaka in particular). Instead, it feels like an expression of growth from Nanna. How To Start A Garden is unlike anything previously released by Of Monsters and Men, with only her hypnotic voice acting as the thread tying the two together. Though the band has now reunited to work on their next endeavour, making it unlikely that we will see any more individual work from Nanna for a while, taking some time as a solo artist was undoubtedly the right path for her. Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir has planted her garden, and we are all lucky enough to see it grow.