Midori Hirano Draws Inspiration from a Classic Icelandic Film » PopMatters

Composer, pianist, and electronic music producer Midori Hirano is a uniquely gifted artist who moves across a variety of experimental sub-genres and, in the process, constantly builds an eclectic catalogue of music. Her projects are as varied as they are numerous, even just in the past couple of years. In 2025, she released Split Scale, a marvelous puzzle of a process-based collaboration with Brueder Selke, and earlier this year she released OTONOMA, where variable sequencers and modular synth patches with varied sound patterns provided a rich, contemporary counterpoint to her melodies. Her latest, The Juniper Tree, is a completely different type of project, but is as compelling as anything she’s done.

Hirano was commissioned by the Belgian cultural center Viernulvier to create a new soundtrack for the Icelandic film The Juniper Tree, filmed in 1986 and released in 1990. The movie, which, incidentally, stars a pre-Sugarcubes Björk, examines the relationship between

the ethereal and terrestrial against the Icelandic landscape. This commission is part of Viernulvier’s Videodroom series, in which contemporary experimentalists reimagine the musical accompaniment of classic arthouse cinema. While one would certainly benefit from having seen the film and/or heard the original score before hearing Hirano’s version, it also works tremendously as a singular, unaccompanied piece of music.

The album’s overall feel leans toward stark, minimalist beauty, as Hirano offers pieces for both synthesizer and piano. In the opening title track, pulses of low-end synth mesh with keening high notes to create a mysterious sonic landscape. That track is followed by “Far Above”, which washes over the listener with sustained ambient soundscapes. The Juniper Tree also features stark solo piano performances, including the sparse, unsettling, and mesmerizing “Spell on You” and the equally haunting “Bird Sleeping in Water”. Hirano’s piano also shimmers beautifully on “Good Bye”, inspired by a traditional Icelandic folk melody sung in the film.

Fans of Hirano’s electronic leanings have plenty to enjoy here. Synthetic sounds are all over The Juniper Tree, sometimes blending ambient moods with traces of early organ music, as on “You Can See What We Can’t See,” or the ebb and flow of synth patches with deep, rich textures on the somewhat hopeful-sounding “Midnight.” There are minimalist approaches on songs like “A Piece of Him”, where long, sustained notes vibrate like a science-fiction score, and on the chilling “In a Glass Box”, where choruses of synthesizers create peaks and valleys of sound with an absence of complications, allowing the track to breathe.

The Juniper Tree, like the film that inspired it, is fascinated by humans’ place in the natural world. Midori Hirano has successfully found a sonic outlet for this particular sense of wonder that sounds simultaneously unique, bewildering, awe-inspiring, and hopeful.