The Road to Medúlla Komið: How Mark O’Leary Rewrote Irish Music History in Iceland

 

The Untouched Frontier

Before the turn of the millennium, Iceland was a conspicuous blind spot for Ireland’s massive musical exports. The global stadium tours of U2 never touched the volcanic island. The relentless touring machine of Rory Gallagher never mapped out a date on its shores. Major icons like Thin Lizzy, The Cranberries, and The Corrs left the territory entirely uncharted.

Everything changed on October 5, 2002.

When Cork-born guitarist and composer Mark O’Leary stepped off the tarmac in Reykjavík, he wasn’t just arriving for a standard gig—he was quietly establishing an absolute historical milestone as the first Irish musician to play an actual concert and headline a festival in Iceland.

He arrived at the absolute peak of his powers, having just toured Europe as a member of the final, historic Paul Bley Trio. Backed by an extraordinary pedigree of global collaborations, O’Leary had already recorded and shared the stage with jazz titans like Jack DeJohnette, Steve Swallow, and Tomasz Stańko. He was an artist operating at the very vanguard of contemporary music.

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The 2002 Breakthrough: Cold Calls, Nintendo, and the Kennedy Center

The path to this historical milestone began with a bizarre twist of fate. Looking to establish a connection in the North of Iceland, O’Leary reached out to local contacts about setting up an appearance. However, the musicians on the other end of the line were highly lethargic—actively playing a Nintendo Game Boy and talking to him concomitantly. Dismissively, they told him, “You should contact the Jazz festival.”

Taking their advice, O’Leary cold-called the organizers of the Reykjavík Jazz Festival

Taking their advice, O’Leary cold-called the organizers of the Reykjavík Jazz Festival (Jazzhátíð Reykjavíkur). When they asked him to mail a CD, he faced a roadblock: he didn’t have any formal albums released yet. What he did have, however, was groundbreaking digital proof. He directed them to live online webcasts of his two separate performances at the iconic Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

[18:00] Tiny Bell Trío (Dave Douglas, Brad Shepik, Jim Black)
[20:30] ÍSLAND - ÍRLAND (Mark O'Leary, Kjartan Valdemarsson, Matthías Hemstock) 
[22:00] Kúbanskt Latínsveiflu Útgáfutónleikar

Captivated by the streaming video footage, the organizers immediately bypassed the need for a physical disc and invited him to headline. They put him in touch with the brilliant drummer and electronic musician Matthías M.D. Hemstock, who instantly clicked with O’Leary and quickly became a lifelong friend. Matthías then suggested bringing in premier pianist Kjartan Valdemarsson to complete the lineup.

After sharing charts across the Atlantic, O’Leary stepped straight off the plane and into high-pressure rehearsals to lock down their set. Billed local-style as “Ísland - Írland”, the trio took the stage at 20:30 at Kaffi Reykjavík, sharing the Saturday night bill alongside American jazz vanguard Dave Douglas. Performing entirely original music to an ecstatic reception, O’Leary forged a creative bridge between the two countries, laying down a foundation that younger contemporary acts like Fontaines D.C. would only follow decades later.

Beyond the stage, the hospitality was unmatched: Matthías and his wife personally drove O’Leary all across Iceland, introducing him to the country’s most breathtaking, iconic landmarks.

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Icelandic Terra firma/ Sagas

The stark, dramatic Icelandic geography instantly resonated with O’Leary, who observed an undeniable ancestral and environmental parity to the raw west of Ireland. This profound geographical osmosis triggered a massive, multi-album creative era across his catalog, shifting fluidly from deep acoustic environmental mappings to cutting-edge electronic subgenres. Mark O’Leary has been quoted as intimating in an interview “the Icelandic sagas are etched in my soul”.

The Keeper Of The Northern Lights (2015)

An album deeply encaptivated by what Seamus Heaney terms the “Idea of the North.” The record deliberately pairs stark, minimal, and oblique ambient backdrops with subtle melodic insinuations of voice, brass, and percussion. [1, 2]

The album’s opening track, “Isafjordur”, serves as a direct, beautiful musical homage to the simple charm of the remote town situated in the northwest peninsula of Vestfirðir. The mystical nature of the terrain is further mirrored in its accompanying record poem: [1]

“The Keeper of the Northern Lights,
Thor strikes hammer ospreys take flights,
Icelandic sagas soothe the soul,
Svalbard station bringeth coal.” [1, 2, 3]

Driving in Iceland (2018)

A brilliant electronic journey traversing the refulgent Ring Road and the quiet stasis of downtown Reykjavík. Tracks like “Skagafjordur” and the title track translate the volcanic terrain and the iridescent northern lights into punctilious synth soundscapes. Back home in Ireland, the album’s deep resonance was recognized with several songs receiving nominations for the Cork Playlist Song of the Week.

Medúlla Komið (2024)

A multidimensional electronic magnum opus where “Medúlla Komið has essences of Björk subtly infused into its ether.” Shifting from the Boards of Canada-esque cascades of “Amber Waves” to the sharp, hip-hop subgenre tinges of “Origamo” and the Squarepusher-influenced programming of “Smorgasboard”, the record maps out an entirely new electronic frontier. [1, 2]

The deeper mythological and environmental roots of this landscape are laid bare in “The Ballad of Medúlla Komið”, weaving local imagery with ancient lore: [1]

“A man called Sigur of Isafjordur, imbued with the hue, of the thane of cawdor,
From hyperborean and smorgasbord, to scythian fields and the golden horde...” [1, 2]

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From the Arctic to the Pacific Northwest: Zemlya, the Reykjavik connection and Icelandic lineage

The creative ripples of that initial Icelandic milestone did not stop in Europe; they ultimately mapped out a massive trans-oceanic road to Seattle for his acclaimed 2008 trio record, Zemlya.

At the end of the concert in Reykjavik, Hemstock suggested Mark O’Leary should contact violist Eyvind Kang. This pairing carried a profound genetic and artistic synchronicity: Eyvind’s mother is Kristjana Gunnars, the celebrated Icelandic-born author, poet, and painter who immigrated to Canada and spent decades creating along the stunning, rugged shores of the Vancouver and Sunshine Coast regions of British Columbia. But Kang has a shared connection, Eyvind Kang is a staple of Bill Frisell’s local music circle, performing with Frisell on multiple occasions and Mark O’Leary had the distinction of replacing Bill Frisell in the Paul Bley Group, over this and their shared Icelandic penchant a bond of kinship was formed.

[Arctic Atlantic] ────> [Icelandic Network] ────> [Pacific Northwest]
(Reykjavík Milestone)     (Kristjana's Roots)       (Seattle Studio Session)

Flying out to the Pacific Northwest, O’Leary aligned with Kang and vanguard percussionist Dylan Van Der Schyff to track an album explicitly rooted in frozen, atmospheric environments. This completed a perfect geographic circle—bridging the volcanic terrain of the North Atlantic with the coastal expanse of the Pacific, all while channeling the same emotional clarity found in Kristjana’s literary prose.

The album’s centerpiece—the enigmatic, long-form masterwork “Story of Iceland, Pt. 2”—serves as the direct spiritual successor to his 2002 debut. Celebrated by legendary critic Brian Morton of The Penguin Guide to Jazz, the record captures an “unearthly”

minimalist world that shifts and reshapes like the northern lights, cementing O’Leary’s status as a visionary who looked far beyond the horizon when the rest of the industry stayed firmly at home.

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