Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.04.2014, Page 22

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The songs on My bubba’s new album, ‘Goes Abroader,’ were written during the long,
dark nights of a Scandinavian winter. Guðbjörg Tómasdóttir (‘Bubba’) was in her native
Iceland; My Larsdotter Lucas (‘My’) who hails from Sweden, was camped out in Den-
mark. The duo missed their adventures together, so they put pen to paper and finger to
fretboard to transport themselves to new destinations. But contrary to what you might
expect, these voyages weren’t always of the sunny, tropical variety.
Issue 4 — 2014
“I’ll crawl through seaweed to knock on
your door / Walk bare feet on broken
clamshells, mile after mile,” My sings
at the beginning of “Island,” the first
single from the album to be released
in Iceland. She continues: “It’s cold and
windy at the seaside, yet here I am.”
“The song is about going through
hard times to say that you’re sorry,”
Bubba explains over the phone, not
bothering to sugar-coat the sombre-
ness of the material. But how does this
inclement trial of love square with the
bright guitar and exotic sounds on the
track? “I never imagined the island on
‘Island’ as a warm, sunny place,” My an-
swers. “It was just an exotic place, like
Iceland is. It doesn’t have to be warm to
be exotic.”
Written Cold, Recorded Hot
Bubba and My began playing their
lo-fi, vocal-oriented folk tunes after a
chance encounter in Copenhagen five
years ago. “We independently write
music and words, and then somehow,
when we meet, there’s a song,” My says
of their collaborative relationship. The
new album came about in much the
same haphazard way. “At some point
we realised we had a couple of exotic
songs and we thought it was something
to keep working on.”
According to My, the sounds on the
album, often tinged with Caribbean, Af-
rican and Hawaiian flavours, are more a
product of intuition than technical striv-
ing. Bubba compares their approach
to that of French artist Henri Rous-
seau, who painted distinctive jungle
landscapes on the basis of pictures he
found in books and museums, rather
than on first-hand experiences. “It’s like
taking an imaginary journey through
something that’s half real,” Bubba says.
Despite the songs’ cold-weather prov-
enance, the album was recorded in
Seahorse Sound Studios and House of
Blues Studios, both in sunny southern
California. The duo worked with Noah
Georgeson, who previously produced
albums for Joanna Newsom and De-
vendra Banhart, and who developed
a layered sound for My bubba. “It was
great working with Noah when finish-
ing the songs, adding layers and tak-
ing it all further arrangement-wise,”
My admits. Nowhere is this advantage
more apparent than on “Poem Found In
The Pocket Of An Amazon.” “Lips sink
down to endless sips in the waterfall /
In the river tall / Warmer than the sun
hidden by the green,” My sings, as the
bass line is wrapped in a humid sonic
fuzz that sounds every bit like the ap-
proach of a tropical thunderstorm.
Still, production quality aside, it’s
the play of voices that gives the album
its soul. Bubba’s vocals are richer, My’s
dreamier — yet both are simultane-
ously disarming and seductive, deli-
cate and sensual. This isn’t something
most listeners would expect from folk
music, with its reputation for acoustic
innocence. But then again, neither is
a cover of Peaches’ raunchy feminist
number, “Fuck The Pain Away,” which
My bubba has been known to trot out
at concerts. “We enjoy playing around
with contrasts, surprising people,” My
says. Almost as surprising as hearing
these two voices recite Peaches’ ex-
plicit lyrics is the subdued cover version
of Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” that
closes out ‘Goes Abroader.’ “‘Sexual
Healing’ is just a really true song,” says
Bubba, justifiably unapologetic about
the choice of material. “There’s always
a reason to sing that one.”
Home And Abroad
My was in between visits to Civil War
battlefields and antebellum plantation
houses in Richmond, Virginia, when
she phoned into the interview. It was
an appropriate location: even though
calypso and other Afro-Caribbean and
African sounds predominate on My
bubba’s new album, Southern influ-
ences also play a prominent role. The
sequential tracks “Knitting” and “Wild
& You,” two of the best songs on ‘Goes
Abroader,’ provide neat examples of
this. “Knitting” is a terse a cappella in-
terlude with a suicidal twist, and might
be the world’s first instance of South-
ern Gothic Twee. “Wild & You” is a
much more straightforward track with
an irresistible country shuffle that lends
itself well to string picking and guitar
sliding — not to mention dancing.
My bubba will be in Iceland for a
small album-release tour in mid-May.
When asked about which city offers
better nightlife, Reykjavík or Copen-
hagen, Bubba thinks it over quickly. “In
Iceland, you go out so late,” she says.
“So you could start in Copenhagen
and then fly to Reykjavík, so you have
the best of both cities.” It’s the liberal
outlook of a far-roving mind. As My
Bubba’s new album shows, the band’s
music is much the same.
“It Doesn’t Have To Be
Warm To Be Exotic”
Words
Jonathan Pattishall
MusicMy bubba’s album ‘Goes Abroader’ comes out April 28. The band
will be in Iceland for a mid-May for a mini-album release tour.
"It’s cold and windy at the
seaside, yet here I am."
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