Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.05.2008, Blaðsíða 17

Feature | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 05 2008 | 17
Let’s start with the obvious first question.
What’s going on with Amiina?
María: There are plenty of things. Too many really.
We’re finishing a movie soundtrack and will soon
go on tour with Sigur Rós. The biggest project at
the moment are concerts we are organising for
the Reykjavík Art Festival where we collaborate
with Kippi Kaninus. The concerts will take place
at Reykjavík Art Museum (Hafnarhús) on May 15
and 16.
Usually, there are only the four of you when
you play live, but these concerts are of much
bigger scale.
Sólrún: Yes, it’s a much bigger project than we
have done before. We got the idea to do a collab-
orative project and thought it would be ideal to
include Kippi, as he had toured with us in Europe
last year. The project soon expanded and more
musicians joined us.
Edda: We’ll be 16 in total.
María: We have had this dream, to produce a dif-
ferent live set, for a long time. Our music has many
layers so when it is only the four of us on stage
we are busy trying to comprise everything. We
wanted to let our music come into its own with-
out us running around, swapping instruments. We
wanted to grab the chance to look at our music
from a different angle, rearrange it and also cre-
ate something new. We’ve done arrangements for
a string quartet as well as a brass section so the
concerts will be different from both our previous
live performances as well as from the songs on
our albums. The title, ‘Amina, Kippi and Friends
in Wonderland’ is a reference to how everything
will become a little twisted.
Sólrún: Something that was once very tiny sud-
denly becomes very big.
You also mentioned a movie soundtrack.
Maria: We’ve been composing the soundtrack for
a British film called ‘Is There Anybody There?’ by
Irish director John Crowley. He put a lot of respon-
sibility on our hands, to help shape the characters
with the music. Although the timing couldn’t have
been worse we decided to go for it because we
liked the film so much.
Sólrún: It’s a story of a ten-year-old boy and an old
man, played by Michael Caine, who’s brilliant in
his role by the way. The film deals with the way
they try to help each other out, dealing with life
and to live in the moment.
María: This is a beautiful and intimate film, filled
with many small details and great closeness to
the characters. The film is in post-production and
scheduled to premiere by the end of this year.
How did you get this project?
Edda: Wasn’t it thanks to Yoko Ono?
Sólrún: That’s true. There is this radio show, called
Desert Island Discs (on BBC Radio 4), where peo-
ple are asked to name records they would take
with them to a desert island. She picked John
Lennon, Sean Lennon and also Amiina, among
others. The director heard this show and bought
the album.
When this project is over, what are the plans
for the summer?
Maria: After we finish the score for the film we’ll
jump on the plane to tour with Sigur Rós for the
next three months.
Sólrún: We’ll support them in concert but not play
our own set this time. We decided to take a break
from Amiina this summer and just have fun. Em-
phasise on one job, instead of two.
María: To play two concerts each night can get re-
ally tiring.
Sólrún: We did that for one year. It was a great ex-
perience but at the same time very exhausting.
María: Considering how much time we’ve spent to-
gether for the past ten years it’s unbelievable that
we are still friends.
Sólrún: It’s been great fun though.
Has it been that long, ten years?
María: Well, it’s a bit complicated. We started to
play with Sigur Rós in 1999 and before that we
played classical music together in school.
Sólrún: We started as the string quartet Aníma in
1998. That’s the beginning.
Edda: Four years ago we started to create our own
music together.
Are there any defined roles in the band today
or do you just pick up whatever instrument
you want and start playing?
María: There really are no clear assignments.
When we get an idea, we just work around it and
each one of us picks up the instrument they think
will fit the best. It’s a very liberating process in
many ways, but at the same time a bit restrictive,
because no one has the role of a leader. All of a
sudden, we’re maybe all going crazy playing so-
los. We’re not the typical band with a singer, bass,
guitar and drums. There is no front and no key
melody, really. But that’s what we like about it be-
cause that way other parts become more promi-
nent.
Your debut album ‘Kurr’, released last year, saw
some good reviews in the international press.
Were the responses beyond expectations?
María: Yes and no. Before we released the album
we had played our songs for a diverse audience
when opening up for Sigur Rós. We therefore had
some idea how people felt about our music, that
they at least didn’t hate it.
It must be a big plus for a young band to be
able to try out their material in front of such
a big crowd.
María: Absolutely. I guess we can say that we
started on the completely wrong end. Our first
real concerts were at Laugardalshöll and our first
concert in L.A. was at Hollywood Bowl, in front of
10,000 people. When we started to organise our
own tours we had gained good experience so we
weren’t as nervous as we maybe should have.
Sólrún: I have to say that I find it easier to play large
venues. When you play in front of thousands, the
crowd becomes more like a big mass rather than
individuals. As soon as you move into a small
venue where you can look at people’s faces, it be-
comes much harder.
Hildur: You realise that there are real people watch-
ing you, who will have opinions about the show.
Edda: I feel much more vulnerable in those cir-
cumstances.
Your collaboration with Lee Hazlewood in
the single ‘Hilli (At the Top of the World)’ got
good coverage, especially since it was his last
recording before he died. How did this col-
laboration come about?
Hildur: His manager got this idea, if Amiina and Ha-
zlewood wouldn’t be a weird and funny combo...
María: … and unbelievably, he said yes.
Sólrún: We never imagined that he would agree
so this was a pleasant surprise. He died only a
couple weeks later.
María: We’ve been huge fans of his so this was all
very surrealistic.
I have to ask about the video to the song
(viewed 20,431 times on Youtube), especially
the scene in the end, where two girls scatter
ash into the crater lake Kerið. This is supposed
to represent Hazlewood’s remains, right?
María: The making of this video was very interest-
ing and happened quite fast. We were actually
abroad when it was filmed.
Sólrún: The director flew to Iceland and produced
the video without us, although we were part of the
process.
María: We debated whether it should show Kerið
and Lee Hazelwood’s name, date of birth and
death, but then we decided to keep the scene
open for speculations. It of course strongly indi-
cates that we are spreading his ashes over Ice-
land’s nature. As surrealistic as the song came to
be, I have to say this video is just as surrealistic.
By SteinunnJakobsdóttir
AMIINA
“We debated whether it should show Kerið and Lee
Hazelwood’s name, date of birth and death, but then
we decided to keep the scene open for speculations.”
Photo by GAS
To us at the Grapevine, putting Amiina and
Morðingjarnir together in a room made perfect
sense. One band likes to play the saw, the other
wields the axe.
Opposites Attract