Reykjavík Grapevine - 19.06.2015, Page 20

20 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 8 — 2015
Amidst twitching rhythms and synth
squalls, she sang in a dizzying vo-
cal range, moving fluently between
snarls, squeaks, rhythmic proto-rap-
ping and high-pitched Middle East-
ern scales. Steinunn’s sound echoed
through the streets, pulling in pass-
ersby, from trolley-pushing grandmas
and Gore-Tex-clad tourists to shop
workers, hipsters, parents and their
toddlers. Before long, the whole street
was packed, with children skipping
around Steinunn’s feet as she handed
out candies and gifts between songs.
Despite the unconventional na-
ture of the music, her performance
captivated the impromptu audience,
leaving them beaming and cheering.
As passing drivers peered curiously
from their car windows and waited
for the crowd to disperse, what was
intended as a small-scale listening
party had become, in London raver
parlance, “a roadblock.”
Night on the bottom of
the ocean
The celebration was in aid of
Steinunn’s second album, ‘Nótt á
hafsbotni' ("Night on the bottom of
the ocean"), which was being released
on CD by the Mengi label (a wider re-
lease is planned for August). The al-
bum is heavily anticipated; over the
past few years, DJ flugvél og geimskip
has become a notable presence on
Reykjavík’s music scene. Just turned
28, Steinunn is a Reykjavík-born art
graduate whose idiosyncratic ap-
proach shares a similar sense of play-
fulness and individuality with Icelan-
dic music alumni like Múm, Jónsi and
Björk.
We meet to discuss the record at
a tucked-away cafe in Grandi, Reyk-
javík’s rapidly redeveloping har-
bour area. Taking a sip of her coffee,
Steinunn takes a deep breath and vis-
ibly steadies herself for the interview,
before explaining the beginnings of
the album. “I had a lot of ideas before
recording it,” she says, an engagingly
animated conversationalist. “I was
planning to do this and that... but I
just can’t work that way. I always end
up doing something
in the moment.”
The album serves
both as a continua-
tion of her colourful
and chaotic aesthetic,
and as a distinct sonic
development. The vo-
cals are richer than
the charming DIY
sound of her debut—
whilst the album re-
tains a playful cut ‘n’
paste feel, it’s a clear
step up in production
values.
“I got this new
drum machine,” she
exclaims, enthusias-
tically. “It’s an MPC-
1000. I was always wondering, ‘How
do people make such good drums?’
When I was 13 I thought it was with
things from the kitchen—I’d use
kitchen utensils, and record them
holding the mic in the other hand.
And that can be the way. But with the
MPC-1000, you can download sounds
into it, or record them and put them
in the machine, then programme the
drums. So this time, all the beats are
much, much better.”
The first DJ flugvél og geimskip
album, ‘Glamúr Í Geimnum’, took
inspiration from outer space. But to
Steinunn, the deep ocean is just as
interesting—or, potentially, the same
place entirely. “If you go down into
the ocean,” she says, “down down
down, down down down down...
there is no light there. There is no
nothing. It is total blackness. And
then you see something blinking and
you think, oh this is the blinking fish!
And who knows… may-
be if you keep going
into the blackness, and
maybe eventually you
come out in deep space.
And maybe they’re not
fish, maybe they’re
aliens. People haven’t
been to the bottom
of the ocean in some
parts, and the same
with deep space. Some
people say, ‘That’s stu-
pid, because if you go
to the bottom of the sea
you get to the middle of
the Earth.’ But for me,
if you go down to the
deep sea, you end up
back in space. It could
be a portal around the core of the
Earth that brings you to space! Maybe
that’s why it’s the same blackness.”
The new wave
Steinunn comes from a musical fam-
ily, and has been learning since child-
hood, when she played violin—an in-
strument she still loves to play today.
“After thirty minutes, it consumes
me,” she says. “I can play for two or
three hours without noticing, and put
all my feelings into what I’m doing. I
didn’t always like it when I was kid—
I didn’t want to practice. But I now
know it helped everything. I did con-
certs, which made me used to playing
in front of people. Also, playing the
violin is a bit like singing, so I think it
helped me to sing! I don’t really know
how to sing but... I know the notes, and
where they go.”
The seeds of her current music
practise were planted when she got
her first keyboard. “It was a Yamaha
called ‘nýbylgjan,’ or ‘the new wave,’”
she smiles. “My father gave it to me
when I was three or four. I would put
on some beat and sing. Then when I
was five I started recording it onto
cassette. The drums were always
homemade back then, you know. But
every now and then I’d get some new
keyboard, like a Casio where you
could play the drums yourself—that
was a big leap forward!”
Steinunn still has those early
tapes. “It’s strange to listen to it now,”
she says. “When I was five I was sing-
ing about wild cats in the night, or
flying cars in space.” She pauses, and
smiles broadly. “Basically, the same
things I’m singing about now.”
The heavy things in life
The new album was recorded out
in the countryside, in the depths of
the Icelandic winter. Envisioning a
melodic, accessible sound, Steinunn
found that the unforgiving weather
had a powerful influence on her work.
“It was supposed to be this catchy
summer hit record,” she explains.
“Then it was so dark and so cold... the
music ended up being really heavy. I
was worried about it, and said to the
Mengi people, ‘I’m so sorry, I think
nobody is going to buy this record!’
But they just said, ‘Ah, no worries,
make the record you want to make! It
doesn’t matter about selling, we don’t
care!’ That was a very good freedom
On a recent Saturday afternoon, amongst the bustling
circus of Reykjavík 101’s summer street life, an unusual
spectacle grabbed the attention of the throng. Under the
blue sky, one of Iceland’s most exciting young musicians,
DJ flugvél og geimskip, aka Steinunn Harðardóttir,
was performing on the street outside of Klapparstígur’s
Reykjavík Record Shop. In front of a windswept curtain
of gold streamers and amidst blinking, colourful lights,
the diminutive, brightly dressed Steinunn hit keys and
pedals to create a joyful cacophony.
Words by John Rogers Photos by Saga Sig Illustrations by Steinunn Harðardóttir
Run
Towards The Li
ght
”I’m always think-
ing, ‘how do people
make pop music?’
I’m always trying
to make catchy,
poppy music, and I
always think what
I’m doing will turn
out to be a catchy
song… then I’ll play
it to my boyfriend
and he’ll say, ‘I think
this... isn’t... a song,
really.’”