Reykjavík Grapevine - 17.06.2011, Qupperneq 21

21
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 8 — 2011
"It's Incredibly Boring to Be Cool"
and headed for the first gig hoping we
would “figure it out” at the gig. That
summer, ‘24/7’ evolved, live, towards
what it came to be. Dark and dubby.
That sound, in turn, established the
base we built the new album on. The
same effect setup is still crucial to the
overall feel [on ‘Arabian Horse’]. The
main difference was that we focussed a
lot more on actual songwriting on this
album. Daníel, Stebbi and I took two
trips to a cabin and played around with
some basic stuff, a kick drum, some
synths and some chords. Daníel wanted
some more colour, so we asked Urður to
contribute some backing vocals.
DÁ: ‘24/7’ was kind of black-and-white.
I wanted some colour, some reds and
stuff. I didn’t want to go back to the girl
party, but I wanted to invite a girl to the
boys’ party.
GYPSY REVELRY
BV: ‘24/7’ was very introvert. We want-
ed to find something new, something
bigger. We’d constructed a new base…
…and now you wanted to see
what you could build on that
base.
BV: …exactly. So Urður came to add a
little brilliance to the refrains…
DÁ: …a little brightness…
BV: …right. And then Stebbi [Stephan
Stephensen] had formed this most
advantageous friendship with Högni
[Egilsson, of Hjaltalín]. Daníel, Stebbi
and Högni went to the Faeroe Islands
together with some of the songs we’d
been working on, and came back with
those two tracks Högni sings on. Steb-
bi’s strength is very much his ability
to work with others, the arrangements
and making stuff happen. He also
brought in Davíð Þór [Jónsson, multi-
instrumentalist and Ólöf Arnalds col-
laborator].
DÁ: At that point, the work divided be-
tween two places, here in Biggi’s studio,
and the studio out in Grandi, where
this kind of gypsy revelry got going.
People would come by and pick up the
banjo, or an accordion, or play the piano
or percussion or whatever.
BV: It gave the songs a whole new di-
mension, really. Sometimes we would
rip the entire core out of a song and
replace it with something new; some-
times that’s what you need to do to give
the song its identity.
That kind of ‘whatever-the-
song-needs’ mentality is some-
thing that a lot of music could
do with, I think. About 98.9% of
Icelandic rock, for instance. But
that’s just me.
BV: One thing I greatly enjoy about
Icelandic punk, something that kind of
laid the groundwork for Icelandic pop
tradition, but has maybe been thinned
out a lot by this ‘krútt’ bullshit, is the
idea that every band had to be distinct
from all the others. Sometimes when
I’m abroad, I find that there is this gen-
eral sameness, that everyone’s doing
the same thing. If you don’t develop
your identity, then you’re nothing. I
like it when bands try to find out what
it is that gives their music a purpose,
a point. The world of electronic music
seems to give you a lot more options in
this, but in rock it’s all about the atti-
tude.
DÁ: It’s not just rock; there’s crap in
every genre. Good music has to have
attitude.
BEAT CIRCUIT
Getting back to ‘Arabian Horse,’
would you say there’s a concrete
reason that it’s more of a ‘pop’
album than ‘24/7?’ You pretty
much told me, but I guess I’d like
to hear it in so many words, you
know, why it’s so well-rounded
and all.
DÁ: …not that ‘24/7’ wasn’t well-round-
ed, it was just different…
…well, yeah, but you know what
I mean. Apples and oranges.
DÁ: (‘Arabian Horse’) is definitely more
diverse. Everyone involved in the mak-
ing of that album left their stamp on
it, no question. The final outcome sur-
prised me. It surprised you too, right?
BV: Well… it was sort of slowly build-
ing. I can’t say it surprised me much.
DÁ: We made the f lesh and bones of
the Arabian Horse; the guests and con-
tributors clad it in skin, gave it its coat.
BV: Totally. There is a need for one to
evolve, forward, and ‘Arabian Horse’
very much fulfilled that need. GusGus
have always felt that need strongly,
Sometimes the evolution is about fin-
ishing ideas from the album before,
and sometimes it is about changing di-
rections. ‘24/7’ was a swift turn, with
‘Arabian Horse’ finishing the idea.
So it is a conscious decision for
you to evolve, to take that step?
DÁ: Yeah, a little bit. It happens in con-
versations, “are we gonna keep doing
this, are we gonna change it up”, you
know.
BV: By now, we’re thinking: “what’s
next”.
DÁ: Now there’s a challenge!
BV: I’ve been evolving some beats, a
sort of ‘beat circuit,’ if you will, it’s been
tickling me…
DÁ: Beat circuit? You mean like a patrol
route?
BV: No! Like an electronic circuit.
How things connect rhythmically. We
haven’t been too observant of rhythms
since ‘Attention’.
It’s been pretty much 4/4 kick
drum on the last few albums.
BV: Yes. It’s been basslines and chords
we’ve been mainly looking at. I’m a to-
tal groove fetishist though and now I
feel strong urge to sink deeper on our
next dive.
That’s an approach.
DÁ: It has attitude.
BV: I’ve always been very interested in
artists who work with the form, the idea
of what a song is and can be.
DÁ: Stretching the form.
BV: I’ve got to get out of these tragic
chord progressions. Find some beats.
DÁ: Go to Africa, maybe?
BV: No… that’s too cliché.
DÁ: The next album will be called ‘Out
Of Africa’.
BV: There are plenty of undiscovered
locales in the beat universe for us to
visit before we have to retrace our steps
all the way back to Africa.
FM Belfast find success by listening to their inner loser
WHY WON’T THEY SLEEP?!?
FM Belfast have been performing in
public since 2006, and their first re-
cord, ‘How To Make Friends’, was re-
leased in 2008. They have just released
their second album, ‘Don't Want To
Sleep’. I start by asking them when
they started working on the new one.
"Some of the songs are old", says Árni
Rúnar, "from around the time the
last record came out. Some songs are
newer, written maybe a month before
the album was completed. A few songs
have been kicking around in our live
program. We've tested them out and
changed them a little bit. We often get
asked how we create things and there's
no one, simple answer. There are three
main kinds of processes. The ones that
never leave the studio, never become
part of the live set, but end up on the
record all the same. They just come into
existence, ready-made songs. Some are
born in the studio over a long period,
some are born quickly, others go into
the live set before they're ready".
"Some are born after 9 months",
says Árni Vil, "and some are born be-
fore". Lóa says: "Yes, some are prema-
ture births and need assistance, need
to go into an incubator". Árni Vil ap-
plies the analogy to Árni Rúnar's three
processes: "So we have those who are
born at the right time, those who are
born prematurely and those who need
the incubator". Árni Rúnar jumps in:
"My favourite songs are those that are
born instantly". Árni Vil spins out his
metaphor further: "That's like a baby
that's delivered via a Caesarean. Okay...
maybe that's not the best analogy".
The three of them, along with Ör-
var, sing on the new album. I ask them
how they go about writing lyrics. Lóa
answers first: "I find it hard to write
lyrics because I'm stuck on the idea
that they have to be really meaningful,
which is weird". Árni Rúnar continues:
"I want them to have no direct mean-
ing, for them to be really open for any-
one to interpret. For example, if you
don't want to sleep, it isn't necessarily
because your heart is broken. The lyr-
ics never say 'you can't sleep because...'.
That gives you the choice of so many
different situations you can experience
the song in". Lóa adds: "Yeah, you could
be an amphetamine junkie. Or like yes-
terday when I couldn't go to sleep be-
cause I love the internet".
GETTING STARTED
‘Don't Want To Sleep’ brings to mind
a lot of early ‘90s techno and also the
indie dance of Happy Mondays and
similar bands. The songs are construct-
ed using modern tools, however, and
never sound dated. What The White
Stripes were to delta blues, FM Belfast
are to rave music. So it is not surpris-
ing to find out that the very first track
they did was a cover of Technotronic's
1989 classic Pump Up The Jam’, back
in 2005 (you can hear the cover on their
MySpace).
Reykjavík! singer Bóas Hallgríms-
son is a long-time friend and fan of the
bandmembers. He tells me the story of
how FM Belfast started. "The Christ-
mas after Árni Rúnar and Lóa started
going out together, they were wonder-
ing what to give their friends as Christ-
mas presents. They decided to record
their version of 'Pump Up the Jam'
and sent it out, to me and my girlfriend
and a few other couples in our group of
friends. Everyone was incredibly happy
with it. That maybe led them to contin-
ue making music together, in any case
they did. Árni Vilhjálmsson was their
friend, in fact he operated a band with
Árni Rúnar for a while called Cotton
+1, and it seemed right to them to bring
him into it".
Árni and Lóa moved to New York,
where Lóa studied illustration at Par-
sons and Árni worked on his music.
Bóas says: "They were roped into play-
ing Airwaves that next year and they
had barely written enough for a set and
were searching for an image and think-
ing about wearing costumes and what
to do and how to behave. Somehow
though, they managed, as if by magic,
to create one of the best gigs I've ever
seen. At the now-burnt down venue
Pravda, I believe".

WHY FM BELFAST? WHY?
Early on FM Belfast were trying to fig-
ure out what kind of project they were.
Was it sincere expression or were they
going to create an image to hide behind?
They came up with the name while try-
ing to figure all that out. When I first
read about the band I thought, because
of the name, that they were a political
band. I wonder what the name means
to them, so I ask. Árni Vil is first to re-
ply: "When we first went to Belfast, and
took the Black Cab Tour, we suddenly
felt that the name of the band was a lot
more serious. When teenagers in Bel-
fast asked us: 'Why is the band called
FM Belfast?' We thought: 'Now we have
to give them a deep, meaningful an-
swer, or else we're insulting them.' But
to us 'Sunday, Bloody Sunday' is just a
good pop song".
Árni Rúnar says: "When we saw
everything there, we felt like the name
carried more responsibility". Lóa ex-
plains: "I felt like I was historically
challenged, when I realised how seri-
ous the situation there is. Icelanders
have no sense of history. We're like
Americans in that". Árni Rúnar jumps
in: "Everything that happens outside of
the country seems like it happened in a
movie". Lóa goes on: "Like Americans
are with their Founding Fathers, we
are the same with [leader of Icelandic
independence movement] Jón Sigurðs-
son and the rest of them. We think our
independence heroes are geniuses who
did brilliant things".
"There was no seriousness behind
the name”, Árni Rúnar continues, “but
now, that's what we're working with
today. It's very weird, and we wouldn't
have selected it if we knew what hap-
pened. It was just a joke. We started
out making songs that were nonsense,
were just supposed to sound cool". Lóa
explains: "Joke cool, you know, wearing
sunglasses and staring at your shoes".
"Like we were a real hard group”, says
Árni Rúnar. Lóa finishes his thought:
"Hard group with a drug problem".
"Which isn't who we were", says
Árni Rúnar, "but who we joked about
being like. People sometimes think
we're really cool at first, but then they
figure out that we're a bunch of losers.
If there's one thing that I've found out
in recent years, it's that it's incredibly
“I didn’t want to go back to the girl party, but I
wanted to invite a girl to the boys’ party.” – Daníel
Ágúst
“Yeah, you could be an amphetamine junkie. Or like
yesterday when I couldn't go to sleep because I love
the internet”
Words
Kári Túliníus
Photography
Hörður Sveinsson
árni Rúnar Hlöðversson and Lóa
Hlín Hjálmtýsdóttir are surprisingly
fresh, considering that the day be-
fore they flew into Iceland after a
short tour of Europe with their band,
FM Belfast. They have spent the day
in their backyard, working in their
garden and enjoying a warm June
afternoon, "to get back in touch with
the everyday", as árni Rúnar puts
it. When I arrive to interview them,
Lóa's sister and her husband are just
leaving.
Soon árni Vilhjálmsson (árni Vil
for short) arrives. He is the third
member of the core group. They
are tightly knit, finish each other’s
sentences, and know each other’s
stories by heart. Örvar Þóreyjarson
Smárason also takes part in most
of the group's activities, but since
he is also member of múm, he is not
always able to perform with FM Bel-
fast live. Alas, he could not make it
that Sunday, but he would join in at
the end via telephone to provide the
final sentence of this article.
TWIN PEAKS