Reykjavík Grapevine - 17.06.2011, Qupperneq 20

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 8 — 2011
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
What was the scene like when
you guys were first starting out
(in 1995)? How have things
changed, for better or for worse?
Biggi Veira: Electronica was different
when it began, before the black kids in
Detroit and Chicago established it as
being something associated with the
nightlife, the club, dancing and drugs.
You’re talking about the ‘70s and
‘80s.
BV: Well, yes, that came first, but come
late-eighties and early-nineties (elec-
tronic music) starts to become associ-
ated with a particular scene. In the late
‘70s, everything is very arty, made by
art-nutjobs, but since then electronica
hasn’t really had much of a life outside
dance music.
Is that something GusGus have
been trying to do, now or since
the beginning, to take it back
to being something arty, some-
thing not tied to the club scene?
BV: No, I wouldn’t say that. I did arty
stuff in the ‘80s, but then dance music
just comes along and takes me over. I’d
been doing small indie-type stuff with
my friends for a while when I was asked
by someone if we knew of an artist he
could book for a rave. I said “I can’t
think of anyone, but I can probably
put together a rave if you want”. So it
was ’92, and one night we did some-
thing very indie and experimental, and
people sat and clapped and were very
polite…
Daníel Ágúst: At a rave?
BV: No no, at the indie thing. Then the
night after, we showed up at the rave
with DAT player and some drums, and
that was insane, everybody partying,
pretty girls everywhere… I never went
back. I just wanted to stay in that party.
That’s been my input in GusGus, that
party atmosphere. It’s interesting to see
how things have evolved and how the
‘party’ has risen to dominate electronic
music.
DÁ: For me, GusGus was totally arty. I
never touched that clubbing-rave-fun-
party culture. I’ve always been more
interested in the obscure, experimental
side of it.
BV: Yes, it was the same for Siggi Kin-
ski [founding GusGus member who left
in 2000]. A lot of the first songs were
his songs that Maggi Lego [founding
member who brief ly left in 2000, and
then permanently left in 2006] and I
arranged as electronic songs.
DÁ: GusGus came from a lot of differ-
ent directions, musically speaking.
BV: Also, there was Maggi Jóns [aka
Blake, another founding member who
left in 1999], he was big into disco and
Gary Numan-type new wave stuff. He
wrote almost half the songs on the first
album. There was even a new wave
song on there… so the first album was
this big melting pot, but was assigned
the ‘trip-hop’ label that was in vogue at
the time.
DÁ: Because it was chilled-out dance
music.
BV: And we used a lot of samples.
DÁ: Then in 2000, you went full-on
into the club scene.
BV: Yes. ‘This Is Normal’ [1999] didn’t
quite go in the direction I wanted it to
go…
DÁ: It had no direction. It just went ev-
erywhere.
BV: Well, not to judge it, but yes, that
was when everyone left, and the gear
sluts, me Bongo and Maggi Lego were
left with the remains of the band. So I
took the chance and let my inf luences
shine through, kind of ‘pre-eighties’,
new wave and Soft Cell. I was also fas-
cinated by that period where disco was
dead everywhere except gay clubs, and
the only new disco was being recorded
with sequencers and drum machines.
‘Attention’ [2002] was very inf luenced
by all that. We’ve been inf luenced as
well by contemporary stuff, but we
haven’t ever fit very well in with any
kind of dance category.
DÁ: When Urður came along, the
party-clubbing atmosphere really took
off, and hit its high point in 2007 with
‘Forever’.
BV: We’d do gigs at [upscale local ven-
ue] NASA four or five times a year, and
that gathered around it a pretty decent
crowd. We had a very good thing going,
and then…
DÁ: …and then Urður left…
BV: …and that was the end of that.
ARTY PARTY
When you (Daníel ágúst) came
back to the band, it became arty
again. ‘Forever’ (2007) was such
a party album, and then ‘24/7’
(2009) is far more minimal and
obscure. The partying took a
backseat to the music.
DÁ: Oh yeah. Everything was turned on
its head.
BV: After Urður left, we were forced to
make some kind of change.
DÁ: Not try to recreate the party.
BV: We needed to switch parties. It’s
like if ‘Forever’ was the warm-up party,
with Urður, the ‘girl party…’
DÁ: You know, fresh make-up, nice
clothes…
BV: Everyone’s still bouncy, not too
drunk, lipstick isn’t smeared yet, but
‘24/7’ was like the after-after party, the
‘veteran’ after-party. It was the party ex-
clusively for those tough enough to last
into the small hours, the guys who pace
themselves so they can party ‘til noon
the next day. They’re not going to pass
out at 4 AM like some amateur.
It’s a perfect description, re-
ally. So was ‘Arabian Horse’ a
direct continuation of this kind
of thinking?
BV: When working on ‘24/7’ in the
spring of 2008, we had the songs but
no idea how to finish them. It was al-
most summer, Urður had just left, so
we had almost no songs to perform
that summer. We then just crammed
the stuff we had into the live setup, up-
dated the effect chain, dub-style, with a
tape-delay-pedal and small Kaoss pad,
The After-After-After Party
GusGus is the name given to an elite
collective of party veterans, a col-
lective that began life as a multi-
method art troupe at the height
of the gay nineties, and has since
evolved into Iceland’s very own
techno superstars. It’s seen found-
ing members come and go, but the
core of the band has always re-
mained: Birgir Þórarinsson, or Biggi
Veira, and Stephan Stephensen,
or President Bongo. The group is
today rounded up by Urður Háko-
nardóttir, or Earth, who has been
an on-and-off member since 2001,
and Daníel ágúst Haraldsson, who
was a founding member but took
a ten-year hiatus to pursue other
projects before returning in 2009.
Their eighth studio album, 'Arabian
Horse', was recently released to
much critical acclaim; we sat down
with Biggi Veira and Daníel ágúst to
find out what all the fuss was about.
GusGus discuss the Arabian Horse
FM Belfast just released an awesome new album
that's already being hailed as one of the year's best.
As did GusGus. Listening to those great new records
one is forced to conclude that the two bands are
surely some sort of 'Twin Peaks' of Icelandic elec-
tronic music. One might even ask them to dress for
the occasion. Because, you know, it's fun. Now go
read what they have to say!
TWIN PEAKS
Words
Sindri Eldon
Photography
Hörður Sveinsson