Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.02.2016, Blaðsíða 26

T H E R E Y K J A V Í K G R A P E V I N E S Ó N A R S P E C I A L2
In December of 2014, a song called “Fuck
With Someone Else” hit the internet. The
track was a glacially paced slice of R&B
electro-pop, featuring a male and female
voice teasing out the title statement over
hushed synths and the gentle interrup-
tion of drum machines. Not much was
known about the band, reported to be
a trio, reported to be Icelandic, and (as
the accompanying video would suggest)
confirmed to be in cahoots with a talent-
ed visual artist.
But let’s be honest—the Reykjavík
scene is many things, but it’s certainly
not big enough to hide in. For long, any-
way. Gangly was quickly unmasked as
Jófríður Ákadóttir (Samaris/Pascal Pi-
non), Sindri Már Sigfússon (Sin Fang),
and Úlfur Alexander Einarsson (Oyama).
When it comes to the mysterious mat-
ter of the masked band, Sindri offers the
equivalent of a verbal shrug. Sure, it was
fun as an established musician to present
music without any preconceived notions
attached, but he certainly never expect-
ed the ruse to last.

A joke
“That was never a planed out thing. It
was more of a joke,” he says. “I remember
when we put the song online, I got a bunch
of messages asking me what this was
from my friends who obviously recog-
nized my voice. Me and Jófríður—there
wasn’t really a question who was doing
this.”
Well, almost no question. Having nev-
er sang in falsetto, it was a while before
Úlfur was unmasked as their third mem-
ber.
“Úlfur, no one knew that he was in the
band,” Sindri continues, laughing at the
memory. “He would be at parties where
people were talking about the song, bit-
ing his tongue and sending me text mes-
sages. That also why we kept it a secret—
we thought it was so funny.”
Sindri also brushes off the idea of the
“supergroup” as something special. Af-
ter all, he notes, a weekend never goes by
without some kind of band being formed
in a Reykjavik bar. Gangly’s first single
(and their only one to date) got its start
when Úlfur approached Sindri about
producing a track that didn’t quite fit in
with his main band’s vibe. A friend of Úl-
fur, thanks in no small part to Reykjavík’s
heavily interconnected music scene, Sin-
dri agreed.

Feminine energy
On the suggestion of Sindri’s girlfriend,
who noted that “Fuck With Someone
Else” needed “some feminine energy,”
Jófríður was added into the mix shortly
after. Sindri had known her since she
was thirteen, when he invited her band
Pascal Pinon to open for him. The pair
toured Europe together, and even wrote
and performed a collaborative song for
British blog The Line of Best Fit. Having
just tapped her for vocal contributions
to the upcoming Sin Fang album, Sindri
was impressed with her fearless musi-
cal spirit, and the speed she’d come up
with contributing parts in the studio. The
trio meshed, and began fleshing out new
ideas together.

Too many cooks?
While this situation reeks of having too
many cooks in the kitchen, Sindri insists
that’s hardly the case. The three artists’
personalities and creativity energy sim-
ply mesh, he says. Why overthink it?
“After we made the first song we fig-
ured out what kind of aesthetic we want
to work with,” he explains. “When you’re
starting a new project, it’s like just finding
the tone. When you do land on something,
it makes it easier to write into that world.
We wanted to do music that we were lis-
tening to, R&B and electronic stuff… But
we haven’t really talked or analyzed any-
thing. I think it’s often like that. If some-
thing is clicking and working, people
don’t really analyze it into the ground…
We’re all used to having a leading role in
our bands. Which is often the case with
bands, there’s one person who’s kind of
dragging everything along. It’s kind of
funny for us three to be working together.
But it works well.”
But there’s still the matter of that
name. (“I think that the hardest thing
about being in a band is to come up with
a name,” he moans.) It’s a tribute, says
Sindri, not to their slick sound, but rather
the emotional content of their first song,
which sits comfortably halfway between
sensual and emotional confusion.

Teenage life
“I was definitely a lost teenager,” he re-
flects. “It was the inspiration for my last
Sing Fang album, my teenage life. It was
a good well to dive into for inspiration.
I was quite lost, a lost young man. I quit
school. I dropped out and started work-
ing manual labor jobs—laying pavement
and digging holes and stuff. I was tired
of school. I never really liked school that
much. I was tired when I was eighteen or
something. I just thought I’d been going to
school for long enough and hating it. My
life was mine, and I didn’t want to go to
school anymore.”
But it’s not as if Gangly will be tapping
into that idea of unfettered freedom. True
to their name, their interest is the dark,
confusing, and emotional growing pains
that we all had to trudge through at one
point or another.
“I think that people romanticise the
idea that when you’re that young you
have all your whole life ahead of you,”
Sindri continues, philosophically. “You
can basically do anything. But if you think
back to the time, that’s what you’re freak-
ing out about. Who am I? What am I going
to do with my life?”
He laughs as he considers all of this.
“I’m glad that I did that and didn’t carry on
with studying things I didn’t like.”
Gangly performs on Friday 19th in
Sónar Club at 19:30
Holly Herndon’s ‘Platform’ is one of
Holly Herndon’s ‘Platform’ is one of
the most dense, dizzying, constantly
surprising electronica LPs of recent
times. Devoutly experimental in na-
ture, it melds broken beats, chopped-
up chants, drones, spoken poetic frag-
ments, lush synth textures, and all
manner of stretched, shattered, pul-
verised electronic and vocal sounds
into a mind-bending whole.
The record is her second, and was
something of a breakthrough, becom-
ing a critical success and a staple on dis-
cerning “best of 2015” lists. But all this
is still just the tip of the iceberg. Holly
is also currently pursuing a doctorate
in composition at Stanford Univer-
sity in California, and is an active art-
ist who’s presented work everywhere
from MoMA PS1 to Berghain. As Sónar
Reykjavík draws closer, she’ll be de-
fending her thesis, finishing on the day
before the festival begins.
“I have to give a public presentation
the night before I fly to Reykjavík,” she
laughs wryly, speaking from San Fran-
cisco over a patchy Skype connection.
“It’s kind of a lot. But my studies are
in composition, so it’s all connected. I
used to separate all these things, but
I realised that was unfeasible, and not
true to who I was. So I’ve merged ev-
erything.”
Holisticism
Merging a wide range of interests into
a communicable form is a process that
Holly carries out on several levels. The
aesthetic of her creative offering, from
album art to videos to social media
presence, forms an impressively co-
herent package, as if part of an overall
work.
“I do look at things in a holistic way,”
she explains. “Your online presence
can be part of a greater artistic gesture.
My partner and collaborator Matt Dry-
hurst gave a presentation at the Goethe
Institute, four or five years ago, called
Dispatch. His thesis, which was really
inspiring, was that the music industry
is aging—the idea of everything being
tied to and documented by an album
cycle is no longer sufficient. How can
we take a more holistic view of an ar-
tistic output?”
“An example of this is someone like
Mykki Blanko,” she continues. “I don’t
even think he’s released an album yet,
but he releases all these videos and has
an amazing Instagram account and is
super active on social media. Another
example would be Lil B. The idea of a
Lil B album doesn’t capture everything
that he is. There’s the ‘cooking dance,’
the Twitter beef, all of this other stuff
that creates his whole practise. I’m
looking at that a little bit.”
Brain trust
Another interesting aspect of her work-
ing method comes via the inclusion of
academic thought. Holly often refers
to “thinkers” when she speaks, leaf-
ing through her mental catalogue of
the current discussions taking place in
contemporary art, music (and the in-
dustry), digital life and cultural theory.
All of this forms a particularly rich per-
spective, and sometimes flows into her
songwriting directly.
“There’s this wealth of thought and in-
formation out there—like a crazy brain
trust,” she explains. “I wanted to shout
out to these thinkers and point to some
interesting people. I started thinking
about how an album release could be
used to investigate other things or talk
about issues I care about.”
That said, the messages on ‘Platform’
aren’t offered up freely—the vocals
and voices are often abstract cuts of
poetic language, or chopped-up lyrics,
semi-obscured in a busy sound mix. But
despite this fractured lyrical presenta-
tion, the album teems with meaning. I
wonder out loud if ‘Platform’ is intend-
ed more as a starting point, than a final
work—a piece ideas can grow from.
“That’s an apt way to put it,” says
Holly. “The title came from Benedict
Singleton’s writings on ‘The Platform
Paradox’. Instead of trying to design a
perfect outcome, he talks about build-
ing this platform where people can
improvise, communicate in new ways,
and build their own things. You’re con-
stantly having to reassess and respond
to the world around you that’s con-
stantly changing, so it’s impossible to
design this perfect future.”
“So yes, the idea of it being a growing
thing is really beautiful,” she contin-
ues. “It butts heads with the album-
release ‘discog culture,’ like, ‘In 2015,
this .WAV file was released,’ and that’s
it. Because no, that isn’t it. There’s so
much more around it, and it’s hard
for a single .WAV file to capture that.
Maybe that’s why the album sounds
frenetic at times—because there’s a lot
of ideas going on in there. But I’m also
really trying not to prioritise lyrics
over conceptual production work. So
if I’m working on a piece that’s about
fractured experiences online, I want to
use my computer, which is my instru-
ment to record those experiences and
build that into the piece rather relying
solely on lyrics. It seems strange to me
when I hear a traditional rock ensemble
singing about digital issues. Not that
it’s wrong to do that—but for me, if I’m
talking about digital life I want to use
those tools to investigate and under-
stand how that changes the aesthetics.
With new questions and new problems
it behooves us as artists to come up
with new aesthetics to express new
emotions. We can’t rely on the musical
tropes of the 70s when we’re dealing
with entirely new issues.”
See Holly Herndon perform on Friday
19th in SónarHall at 22:00.
Gangly:
"Oh Grow Up"
Future Aesthetics Holly
Herndon is
pushing the limits
of what music can
be in 2016
By Laura Studarus
by John Rogers