Reykjavík Grapevine - 12.01.2007, Side 33

RVK_GV_01_007_INTERVIEW_1
atre. As soon as the music echoes
to some ideological structure or
thought pattern a certain context
is created and things flow better,
more smoothly. It happened with
Virðulegu Forsetar, and also IBM.
The concept evolved along with
the music, and time. It’s music I’ve
been working on since 2001 and
collaborating on with Erna.
In many ways I think I work
more like a visual artist than a com-
poser; I am not educated in the
craft and I think that makes me ap-
proach things in a more abstract,
ideological way than I perhaps I
should. I think I work more from
the standpoint of ideological con-
nections and visual wholes than
any musicological ideas or things
generally attributed to composi-
tion. Writing the music isn’t an in-
tellectual process for me, however,
it’s instinctual and unconscious in
ways, it happens on a lower plane
of consciousness, so to speak.”
Was there a specific category
of listener he had in mind while
making IBM 1401?
“It is made purely for myself. I
wrote it for myself and it’s just re-
ally… the kind of music I want to
hear. Even though it’s a cliché to
say that you have to be true to
yourself, I think it rings true. That’s
the standard I’ve always gone by,
if I like something, if something
touches me, then there’s a chance
it might also touch someone else.
That’s basically how I determine
if something works: does it move
me? Is this something I would like
to hear, that I would play in my liv-
ing room? It’s that simple. When I
wanted to hear albums by an or-
gan quartet, I called up three organ
players and asked them to make
music with me. It isn’t really com-
plicated.”
Juvenilia
Jóhannsson’s musical roots seem
decidedly “rock”, serving as gui-
tarist/organ player for local metal
legends HAM following the de-
mise of the aforementioned Daisy
Hill Puppy Farm. We speak of his
progression from a teenager in a
rock band towards the man who’s
Virðulegu Forsetar was described
by Stylus Magazine as “an album
that seemed to epitomise the up-
tick in interest that contemporary
classical music was enjoying at the
time.”
He tells me he took a long time
discovering what he really wanted
to create, that his solo albums
are the most personal things he’s
crafted since Daisy Hill, where he at
18 years old, wrote music for the
three piece to play and record, re-
sulting in a record he refers to with
the word “juvenilia”. He says he
has problems connecting with the
works of his first musical outlet,
before refraining as he remembers
that band’s later output. “We actu-
ally recorded an entire album that
was never released, very drone-y,
heavy stuff. The music got simpler
and simpler, in the end it was ul-
tra basic and minimalistic, really
not that far removed from some
of the ideas of Virðulegu Forsetar
and IBM. We took inspiration from
bands such as Suicide, The Jesus
& Mary Chain, The Stooges, as
well as a bunch of electronic mu-
sic and Philip Glass. Really, when I
think about it I am really working
with the same elements in a bigger
context. There is more, of course,
and most people who’d play the al-
bums back to back would be hard
pressed to find a connection, but
for me it’s there.
I really think it took a long time
for me to find a voice for myself;
that probably didn’t happen until
we founded Kitchen Motors. A lot
of things start happening around
that time, that’s when the organ
quartet is formed and that’s when
I started to focus on a lot of things
that perhaps blossomed in a cer-
tain way with Englabörn, my first
solo album.”
A lot of the early influences he
mentions for Daisy Hill Puppy Farm
emphasise textures and ambience
over melodies, something he seem
to stick to even today. Perhaps the
connection isn’t far fetched.
“That was what we were try-
ing, we weren’t particularly punk
at all. I think of Daisy Hill more as
a psychedelic band than a punk
one, but of course there was that
primal punk drive behind what we
did. The Ramones were a huge in-
fluence as well.
If you delve into Virðulegu
Forsetar, for instance, you’ll see
that it’s a very simple piece at its
core, none more complicated than
a Daisy Hill song, or a Ramones
one. It’s just stretched out and ex-
panded, blown up to… gigantic
proportions, and made to be more
monumental. That specific piece
is all about expanding on some
very simple elements, its structure
was written in about five minutes
although I took a long time to
expand and explore on the idea
– where that little piece of fabric
is viewed in every possible lights,
through a number of media such as
a brass band, two church organs,
Matthías Hemstock drumming and
Skúli Sverrisson on bass. They all
enable me to examine all the differ-
ent possibilities that lie within it.”
He claims it was written in five
minutes, which might come as a
surprise to any of the enthusias-
tic listeners that have embraced
Virðulegu Forsetar since it’s initial
release. He speaks more of the
possible connections between his
young, rockin’ self and the person
he is today, the one who accompa-
nied his latest release with a four
page manifesto detailing the ideo-
logical structure and philosophical
quest behind it.
“I think I’m always kind of aim-
ing for the same objective, I’m really
just trying to reach a direct connec-
tion with people’s emotions. I want
to write music that touches people
in a very direct way, and then sim-
plify it down to a specific core. A
pure essence.”
“You might say that everyone is an elec-
tronic musician these days, even the little
kid with an acoustic guitar who records all
his strumming on a laptop. Everybody’s us-
ing the same instruments, except for may-
be a few retroheads like Devendra Banhart,
who’s an analogue freak…”
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