Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.05.2008, Page 44

B12 | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 05 2008 | Article
OK. So you figure the name’s supposed to
invoke irony. I mean, the five releases that so
far make up Grandmother’s Records catalogue
don’t sound like anything any grandmothers I
know would approve of. Noisy, skronky blasts of
puerile satisfaction do not delight them much.
So you don’t know what they’re about, and you
see their album covers, you hear their records
and you stumble into their concerts at well past
midnight; these are smart, hip young(-ish) kids
in shiny pants that don’t seem take themselves
or anything else seriously. So of course the
name is an ironic gesture. “Ha ha ha, delight-
fully noisy records for grandmothers!”
But therein lies a conflict, because Markús
Bjarnason, singer and keyboard player of
staple Grandmother’s acts Skátar and Sofandi
and apparent ideologue-slash-creator of the
concept underlying the whole Grandmother’s
Records business, comes across as an urgently
honest young man. Whether in conversation
or in concert, he feels like he is constantly try-
ing to bare his soul to you, as if he’s had some
shocking revelation that the whole world needs
to hear, and he intends to make it listen by any
means necessary. He also has a surreal sense of
humour, which colours the Grandmother collec-
tive’s output and activities considerably.
In a red-eyed five a.m. e-mail, he explains to
me what the Grandmother’s Records moniker
means, and why: “The last track of Anguma, So-
fandi’s first record [and the label’s first release]
has lyrics about the period in life where all your
drawers and cupboards are filled with crap,
when the TV only has eight channels and you
want to watch the ninth. And how good it feels
to visit your grandmother at a time like that, and
have a chat with her. And how Everything (sic)
becomes OK after a chat like that. And when we
needed a name for the label, we immediately
thought of Grandmother’s Records.” So, it turns
out that it isn’t ironic. Not really.
Grandmother’s Records is by all means an ac-
cidental gathering of like-minded folk, one that
has been growing organically and joyfully since
that first release. Says Markús: “When we, the
members of Sofandi, started making our record,
we knew we would have to pay for it out of our
own pockets. We fully realised that our music
wasn’t going to appeal to most people. We had
competed in the Battle of the Bands and listed
our category as Baroque music, which meta-
morphosed into “Bar rock” in the newspapers.
We lost the contest, and nearly got kicked out of
it for acting “weird” backstage. So we knew, and
we recorded that album with a passion and re-
leased it ourselves, on our own label. Our friend
Stína did the cover, and our friend Krissi did the
layout. This is the way we have worked since.
“When our friends in Graveslime wanted to
release their record, it was self evident that
they should do it on Grandmother’s. Because
it was never anything but a name, an umbrella
over a group of friends that liked hanging out
in rehearsal studios and attempting to make
music. And so they did it all themselves, and we
helped where help was needed. Which is what
this entity has evolved into, and perhaps always
was, a co-dependent mutual self-help organiza-
tion. You do things yourself, and if you want our
help and to learn from our experiences, you can
come to us.”
And those friends are having a party tonight
(given that you read this on this issue’s street
date of 05.09.2008) where they will celebrate the
fact that their catalogue is now available on-line
via Grapewire.net. And everyone’s invited. The
party will feature some schizophrenic perfor-
mances and a DJ set by Iceland’s premier noise
artist, which says a lot about the collective
which is releasing its sixth long-player shortly, a
début by the mighty RETRON.
And if you read this in time, you should pay
them a visit. For your début might be the next
one on the label. They really want everyone to
join.
Grandmother’s catalogue:
Sofandi – Anguma (2001)
Sofandi – Ugly Demos (2001 – originally re-
leased by Thule Musik)
Graveslime – Roughness and Toughness (2003)
Skátar – Heimsfriður í Chile (2004)
Skátar – Ghost of the Bollocks to Come (2007)
RETRON – TBA (2008)
By Haukur Magnason
The Story of Grandmother’s Records
Grandmother’s Records
is by all means an acci-
dental gathering of like-
minded folk, one that has
been growing organically
and joyfully since that
first release.
Grandmother’s outfit Skátar on stage at Organ.
www.bluelagoon.com
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