Reykjavík Grapevine - 27.07.2007, Blaðsíða 14

B6_RVK_GV_INFO_ISSUE 11_007_INTERVIEW/MUSIC
The lo-fi country pop group Seabear will be
among the many acts performing at the an-
nual Innipúkinn music festival, taking place in
Reykjavík on August 4 and 5.
The band released its first LP, The Ghost
that Carried Us Away, earlier this year and is
planning a tour around Europe this fall.
Seabear started out as Sindri Már Sigfús-
son’s solo act and has slowly transformed
into a large group of musician friends. Today,
the group counts seven active members plus
some session players that accompany them in
concert. Their intimate music has been com-
pared to the likes of Sufjan Stevens and Belle
& Sebastian, but Sindri says that he doesn’t
really know what type of music they play and
that he wants wants each listener to judge for
himself. He has proven to be an outstanding
singer and musician, a clever songwriter with
a humble personality, all of which helped to
impress industry veteran Thomas Morr, owner
of Morr Music, who signed the band to his
Berlin-based independent music label. With
a three-record contract in their pocket, Sindri
and his Seabear project seem to be headed
for international success.
No More Members!
Although Sindri has been writing music since
his early teens, the Seabear moniker didn’t
become a reality until after he was hospitalized
in London a couple of years back.
“Yeah, I was living in London [in 2002] and
ended up in hospital for three weeks. I had
been working at some crappy coffeehouse
but got insurance money when I was in the
hospital, about 50£ a day. For that amount I
bought a small recording set. That’s basically
how it all started,” Sindri explains.
In 2004, Seabear’s first album, ‘Singing
Arc’, a self-released home-made EP, came
out and was distributed on the Internet. The
album can still be downloaded for free from
his website (www.seaberia.com). At that time,
Seabear was still a solo project, but after be-
ing asked to open up for The Books in Berlin,
Sindri, who had never played his songs for a
big audience, got his two friends Guggý and
Örn to back him up on stage. The twosome
stuck around ever since that gig.
Then the party grew even bigger and better.
Today the band features seven members who
play all sorts of peculiar instruments such as
ukulele, percussion, banjo and glockenspiel
- instruments that Sindri has been collecting
for years, but says he doesn’t really know how
to play.
“I promise though that there will be no
more members! It’s enough trouble to keep
this group together. But it’s also a lot of fun
of course” Sindri explains, adding that every
one of them started out as a session player
for one or two gigs, before finally joining the
band.
“It’s been nice,” Sindri says, “We all get along.
I meet them one-on-on in my small studio and
everyone has their own input into the songs.
They write their parts and I record them and
then we just work from there.”
This year saw the release of his first full
length album, The Ghost that Carried Us Away,
which will be released in Europe this coming
August and in the U.S. and in Japan in Sep-
tember. Touring abroad will surely follow.
“We aim to tour Europe in November and
in January. We are trying to find a time that
suits everyone. Everyone except me has a real
job, so it can be a bit tricky, but the plan-
ning and the booking of the gigs is almost
done.”
Asked how he became part of the steady-
growing Morr Music family Sindri explains,
“Thomas came to the concerts in Germany
and contacted me after the show. I sent him
some demos and he asked if we wanted to
sign a contract. About six months later that
was all settled. I really like the company. It’s
small, with only about 15 employees. It’s all
very personal and it’s no problem to just give
Thomas a call about anything. There haven’t
been any major issues yet at least and no one
has asked us to change anything or interfered
with our music.”

A Mysterious Video
Seabear’s star has been rising quickly on the
Internet ever since the EP release. International
idolaters have started a Seabear Fan-group
on Myspace and observing Youtube browsers
might have spotted the video clip ‘The Sci-
ence of Sleep Music Video’ featuring Seabear’s
song ‘I Sing I Swim’ set to scenes from Michel
Gondry’s surrealistic film. When asked about
the clip, Sindri says he didn’t know anything
about it before a friend of his informed him.
“I found it very weird, especially since the
album [The Ghost that Carried Us Away] wasn’t
even released at the time the video was put on
Youtube. The album had leaked on the net,
but I don’t know who made the music video
or what his purpose was. It’s all quite funny
really.”
Another Seabear music video can be found
on Youtube, an amazing stop-motion video to
‘Hands Remember’ by Norwegian director Lars
Skjelbreia, a friend of the group. “The video
will be on the album released abroad,” Sindri
says.
Sindri and his bandmates are already work-
ing on a new album: “We have loads of songs
to work on and will be in the studio to record
drums in September. Apart from that, there are
a few small projects lined up. We will release
a 7’’ in August, which will feature one new
song and a cover of Undertones’ and ‘Teenage
Kicks’. The Morr label, which releases these
cover compilation discs on a regular basis, also
has a new one planned. They’ve already done
Morrissey and Slowdive and I think that the
next one will be some rock band from New
Zealand. Very weird but probably an exciting
project. I am also working on some stuff and
writing songs by myself. I don’t know what I
will do with them. Perhaps they will end up
on an album someday.”
– So are you planning to fly solo again?
(Laughs) ”Yeah, and finally form a new band
around that project.”
You can listen to Seabear on: www.myspace.
com/seabear.
Seabear: A Fully-fledged Team
Text by Steinunn Jakobsdóttir Photo by Gulli
“I found it very weird, es-
pecially since the album
[The Ghost that Carried
Us Away] wasn’t even
released at the time the
video was put on Youtube.
The album had leaked on
the net, but I don’t know
who made the music video
or what his purpose was.
It’s all quite funny real-
ly.”
RVK_GV_INFO_ISSUE 11_007_ART_B7
At various Icelandic art schools, designer/fashionista Óli
has a reputation. Having focused his art in the direction
of the greater community, he has worked in various
underground art/video collectives, been an integral
member in the formation of independent galleries, and
has many of his street pieces featured in various books,
including the recent troublemaker “Icepicks.” I forgot
to add that Óli is only in his mid-twenties.
Recently, in what might have been a Ginsberg-like
epiphany, Óli realised his sizable contribution to the
blossoming Reykjavík art community. He concluded
that it was time to do something ironically entrepre-
neurial. It was time to introduce a new gallery unit to
the art scene: Gallery Crush. The decision to open up
his own independent art gallery/ music venue/ clothing
and magazine store might put him in the running for
Reykjavík’s most iconoclastic. And this is Iceland, so
that would put him pretty high in the running for most
iconoclastic worldwide.
Gallery Crush is a small shop conveniently placed
atop the hipster-frequented, fashion/record haven Rokk
og Rósir at Laugavegur 28. Upon entering the gallery,
one would think that the whole thing had been moved
straight from the scenester-infested streets of Brooklyn’s
Williamsburg. As a matter of fact, Óli has close ties with
artists, clothing designers and independent publishers
in New York and is perennially making trips to the city
for items to sell or showcase. I’m sure he picks up a few
ideas on the way.
The current exhibition at the gallery is an installation
titled ‘Seagulls’, by local sculptors Arnar Ásgeirsson and
Styrmir Örn Guðmundsson. The work is in response to
city hall’s recent experiments in poisoning the flocks of
hungry seagulls that haunt the upper pond. Clay, faceless
seagulls scatter a huge table with real rocks. Óli tells me
that a seagull and a zine about seagulls (a mock 2-for-1
deal) are on sale for 3,000 ISK.
Gallery Crush is also a clothing store with Óli’s per-
sonal line, and a few intensely patterned hoodies (12,900
ISK) from a line called ‘Pretty Shitty’, which is based out
of New York. In what might be a sardonic nod to Lesley
Gore, Óli has titled his own small clothing line ‘Sunshine
and Lollipops’. Though only in its infancy, ‘Sunshine and
Lollipops’ has a number of unique shirts and hooded-
sweatshirts. Óli uses old B-movie monster film covers for
many of his T-shirts (which range from 3,500 to 4,400
ISK.) One hoody is taken from the cover of an old 70’s
porno called Dude. All of the items are screen printed
by Óli, so no two shirts are the same. Some even have
intentional smears and blotches, to better the DIY au-
thenticity of the brand.
Aside from clothes, Gallery Crush has of miscellany
that makes it seem more like a cool personal space than
a gallery. Old action figures decorate the far wall, and
a table stands in the middle with hard-to-find Icelandic
zines, street art books, and an obscure New York maga-
zine called Frank, which is basically what Vice magazine
wants to be.
The walls of Gallery Crush are noticeably white, a
part of Óli’s scheme: “I want the clothing to hang up on
the wall like graffiti.” Upon a closer look, Gallery Crush’s
walls really do seem to resemble the hidden alleyways
of the city centre.
Like all good entrepreneurs, Óli has created a Myspace
for his business and clothing line at www.myspace.
com/sunshineandlollys. The URL was shortened to ‘lollys’,
of course, because ‘sunshineandlollipops’ was already
taken by a 57 year old man from New Jersey
Gallery Crush
Text by Chandler Frederick Photo by Gulli
Lárus & Lárus
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