How Hildur Guðnadóttir and Sam Slater Go Inside The Sound With HEDD

With a focus on collaboration, minimalism, and the tactility of analogue, Hildur Guðnadóttir put her trust in the Type 20 MK2 monitors to find her way inside the sound.

Based in Berlin, experimental cellist-composer Hildur Guðnadóttir and her husband, the producer and sound Designer Sam Slater, are on an inspiring musical journey. For years they have been active in and beyond the Icelandic and Berlin music scenes, playing shows and festivals, making inspiring records, and collaborating with bands and artists such as Animal Collective, Múm, Ben Frost and Valgeir Sigurðsson - among many others.

In 2019, one year after the death of Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhansson, who they shared a studio space in Berlin Kreuzberg with, Hildur stunned the world with her soundtrack for Todd Phillips' Oscar-winning psychological thriller Joker. She was awarded an Academy Award for the music, while Sam won a Grammy for his role as a sound Designer and score producer. Both also won Grammys for their work on the soundtrack to HBO's mini series Chernobyl, arguably another milestone in recent TV history. In November 2021, they announced their collaboration with gaming company EA on the soundtrack of Battlefield 2042.

Whereas Sam owns fairly substantial amounts of tasty soft- and audio-hardware which he considers crucial to his studio workflow, Hildur is all about analog simplicity and minimalism. Entering her small atelier is soothing, there is space, there is light, there are instruments made of wood. She spends most of the time practicing the cello, finding new sounds, improvising - and ultimately recording herself through a straight-forward recording chain, only interrupted by the occasional bark of her dog Máni.