Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.02.2016, Page 30

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 L6
The city is covered in fresh snow, and
flurries keep whitening the windy
shores of Reykjavík as we head to Óla-
fur Arnalds’s studio. Now that we see
what he sees when he’s composing,
the core of this talented and prolific
artist’s music suddenly seem so clear.
Ólafur’s pieces have a lot in common
with Iceland’s weather during winter:
they often start softly, like a whisper
of wind in the silence of a snowfall, be-
fore gradually expanding and releasing
their emotional might with a blizzard
ardour. Whether on his own or as half
of the techno duet Kiasmos, his music
always carries that same melancholic
passion that has brought him interna-
tional recognition—such as a BAFTA
for his work on the BBC’s critically ac-
claimed ‘Broadchurch’, and the oppor-
tunity to give his own reinterpretation
of some piano works by Chopin, in col-
laboration with the accomplished Ger-
man-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott.
Back in Iceland after a year of ex-
tensive touring, Ólafur receives us in
his recording room, where most of his
recent works were born, to talk about
Kiasmos, his interest in new technolo-
gies and the future of (his) music. We
start by talking about what excites him in
the Icelandic music scene these days, and
learn that just like the Grapevine, he’s
really digging on that new Icelandic hip-
hop thing. “I love Úlfur Úlfur, Emmsjé
Gauti and all this mainstream hip-hop
that’s going on,” Ólafur says as we get set-
tled for a conversation. “I think it’s really
cool, and it’s new in Iceland—we’ve never
had this kind of hip-hop before.”
Ólafur gets loud
The year 2015 was been a really busy one
for Kiasmos, touring almost every month,
all over the world. How important is the
project to your career at this point?
More than we meant to [laughs].
Just after our album came out [in Oc-
tober of 2014], the project kind of just
blew up and we decided to seize the
opportunity and take it on tour and just
concentrate on that for a while. But we’ll
be slowing it down a little bit this year, al-
though it’s great and refreshing for me to
do something so completely different.
How would you say your work with Kias-
mos has influenced your solo work?
I think my solo work might start lead-
ing a little bit more towards what I am
doing with Kiasmos, because I had
so much fun playing all those festival
shows, which I couldn’t really do before
as my music has been so quiet. Now I
kind of want to make my music a little
bit louder [laughs]. I would like to keep
a bit more electronics in it, introduce
some more techno-inspired beats, but
I think they will really stay pretty soft
and subtle. I just want something may-
be more danceable…
But aren’t you afraid that some of your
fans might not like this new musical di-
rection?
It’s hard to tell, because I have so many
different fans, and I can’t always please
everyone. I have decided not to make
that my goal. I just do music that I enjoy
making and playing.
Now you’re back in the studio and work-
ing on a new solo album. What can you
tell us about it?
Actually I can’t tell much. I’m working
on four different projects, but at the
moment, I’m just writing music, with-
out really aiming for anything. But I’m
planning a release pretty soon, for one
of my projects, just not a full-length al-
bum. I’m planning that for 2017.
SUB: Classic Ólafur Arnalds move
The Chopin Project marked another
step forward in international recogni-
tion for your music. How was it, work-
ing with a musician like Alice Sara Ott,
from the classical scene?
Working with her was amazing, because
she’s just amazing [laughs]. One of the
reasons why we chose to do this togeth-
er was because we became very good
friends, and she is very open, she’s will-
ing to try new things as long as we still
respect the original work. That was kind
of the main rule we had in the project.
And touring with her was also a great
experience. To her, that was a totally
new thing—touring with a band, a crew,
lighting designers, etc.—but she had a lot
of fun, and that brought me a lot of fun.
Could this be the beginning of more
classical reinterpretations?
I don’t think so, it was a one-off project
for me, and it came from Chopin’s music,
it didn’t come from the idea to reinterpret
just any classic music. If in the future I
discover another composer that inspires
me, then sure, I’ll do it. But I’m not look-
ing for another project like that.
Why do you love Chopin’s music so
much?
I grew up with it, it’s very personal and
nostalgic to me, it reminds me of my
family, my childhood… It really influ-
enced me to start writing classical mu-
sic myself, and I think the music that I
have written very often takes elements
of what Chopin did. It felt right to pay
him a tribute.
An identity thing
Tell me about Arnór Dan (Agent Fres-
co), who contributed vocals to your last
solo album (‘For Now I Am Winter’,
2013) and has been a part of your jour-
ney on ‘Broadchurch’. Is he the “official
voice of Ólafur Arnalds?”
Well, at the moment I guess he is.
We keep doing these one-off projects to-
gether, we’re currently recording a cover
song, as a single, and he might come back
for the next season of ‘Broadchurch’,
but I don’t think I’m really looking to
have vocals on my next album. I think
it’s also an identity thing, I don’t really
want to have someone else as the iden-
tity for my music, so I try to limit myself
in these collaborations.
You have never stopped experiment-
ing, constantly trying new approaches
on each of your releases. What are you
currently interested in doing that you
maybe haven’t tried before?
I’ve been really interested in technol-
ogy recently. I’ve been working with a
couple of software engineers to build
software for creating music. I’m inter-
ested in seeing how technology chang-
es the way we write music. I’m explor-
ing the way you create and play those
sounds, and how we can use technology
to take our creative intuition to a place
that it wouldn’t otherwise venture.
Let’s go back to Kiasmos. How is a Kias-
mos song usually produced? Does Ja-
nus first come up with a beat and then
you sit at the piano to try and come with
something to play over it, or is it perhaps
the other way around?
It goes both ways. Usually, we make
some kind of a beat first, and then I
very often play some piano on top and
improvise until we find something. But
other times, we just use synths, and the
piano or strings only come at the very
end. It’s joint work, we’re usually in this
room together, experimenting and try-
ing out different things.
What does Kiasmos’s 2016 look like?
We will do a lot of festivals in the sum-
mer, Sónar is the first one. It starts
more or less in April and we have a lot of
festivals until the end of August, mostly
in Europe, and some in America. But
there’s no album planned at the mo-
ment, because I’m concentrating on my
own work.
Kiasmos storms Sónar Club
Friday 19th at 23:30
Karó is an exciting new artist who
popped onto our radar last autumn
with the release of the single “Silhou-
ette.” Made in collaboration with pro-
ducer and performer Logi Pedro, this
earworm has amassed almost 70,000
plays on Spotify—a runaway success
for such a new project. Soon thereaf-
ter, those eagle-eyed folks at Sónar
contacted her, offering her a spot in the
lineup. Since then, Karó has diligently
worked on new music, and decided that
Sónar is the perfect platform to début
some fresh material.
Music comes naturally to Karó.
With no formal training whatsoever,
she has somehow always found her-
self performing—whether it’s winning
a national singing competition for her
school, or just singing while doing the
dishes.
There’s something fascinating about
Karó. She is the sort of cool and col-
lected individual who makes everyone
around notice and want to get to know
her better. Being a student, barista,
Twitter enthusiast and amateur ac-
tress, Karó says she still finds the time
to create music because it’s something
she is deeply passionate about. “If I am
enthusiastic about a project I give it
my all,” she says, “and my new mate-
rial, for example, is something I really
believe in.” After Sónar, however, she
says she’ll have to focus on her studies
again.
Karó will be performing at SonarHall
Saturday, February 20 at 20:00. With
visual art designed by Hlynur Snær and
collaborations with Auður and Young
Nazareth, it’s safe to say the perfor-
mance will slay.
Karó: Newcomer of the year
“Exploring The Way We Play
And Create Sounds” Kiasmos’s
Ólafur Arnalds discusses his
many lives as a composer
By Hadrien Chalard / Photo by Marínó Thorlacius / Mercury Classics
Pictures and text by Hrefna Björg Gylfadóttir