Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.12.2016, Page 24

24The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 18 — 2016
on hiatus. Well, not
a real hiatus. More like a
travelling with gypsies in
Spain/singing in base-
ments in Canada/fronting impro-
visational jazz bands in Berlin-type
“hiatus.” She left her band in search
of a “firework” feeling, and the sparks
started to fly. Earlier this year a group
from Belgium called The Colorist
Orchestra approached Emilíana with
the idea of “re-colouring” a selection
of her tracks. She met up with them
and performed five shows of sixteen
reworked tracks with the group. Their
musical and personal chemistry was
something more like alchemy, so they
extended their tour and decided to
release a live album. On December
9th, ‘The Colorist & Emilíana Torrini’
was released through Rough Trade
Records.
Video and computer games are
becoming increasingly (sometimes
terrifyingly) true to life. But while
most put their first-person player in
Middle Eastern war zones or the bed
of the LA River, the latest hit puts you
on the pixelated banks of Bankas-
træti, dipping and weaving through
the crowds to get to your Saturday
night fav: Prikið. This past month,
Emmsjé Gauti released his latest
record, ‘Sautjándi november’, accom-
panied by the a video for “Svona er
Þetta,” and maybe the world’s first
computer game to be set in 101. The
album is his second this year. We’re
not sure what the prize is, but we’re
pretty sure he’s winning.
While Gauti’s expanding into the
realm of computer games, Kristín
Lárusdóttir is expanding the study of
Computer Music. In 2013, she was
the first to graduate with a degree in
Computer Music from an Icelandic
Academy where she also studied
classical cello and baroque music.
On November 25 she released her
second album, ‘Himinglæva’. It’s thirty
minutes of alone-time cello, vocals
and electronics.
“Thank you for your story,” said the
American afro-house producer Osun-
lade to DJ Yamaho after her set. “When
he thanked me for my story, I knew
he got it,” DJ Yamaho says. “I want to
take you on a journey with my set.”
On December 10, Yamaho is booked to
play Berghain for the legendary Berlin
techno club’s twelfth birthday celebra-
tion. “I will take them on a journey,”
she says confidently.
Never catch me slippin’
T he f i rst t i me Yama ho v i sited
Berghain was in 2004. “I get goose-
bumps thinking about it now,” she
says. “I remember walking in and my
mind was blown. I thought ‘I have to
play here.’” She had just gotten her
start in Reykjavík as a DJ at a club
called Sirkus. “There was nothing like
Sirkus,” she says. “The energy and the
group that found a home there was so
unique to that place.”
The desire for dance music has al-
ways run strong with Yamaho. “There
was this one club in Reykjavík, Tetris,
that played hip-hop upstairs and dance
music downstairs. I’d never heard any-
thing like it. I was only seventeen but
I’d do anything to get into that club. Of
course, I stick out like a lightbulb,” she
says, waving her hands over her wild,
curly hair. “The bouncers were always
pulling me out. I’d hide under tables.
One time I called my friend and asked
to borrow his ID. He had a mustache
and everything, but you know, desper-
ate times. It didn’t work. But I tried.”
All in
The last time Yamaho left Berlin was
a life-changing moment. Her grand-
father, who raised her and supported
her musical habits—“he gave me a
new instrument every year for Christ-
mas”—was ill. She left everything,
flew home from Berlin, and spent her
waking hours by his side in the can-
cer ward. “I saw two things there—
people who were completely at peace,
and people who were completely dev-
astated,” she says. “I talk to people, I
chat. Sometimes I would meet these
people who would tell me, ‘Oh, I wish I
had played an instrument,’ or ‘I should
have…’” After her grandfather passed
away, Yamaho knew she had to go all
in. “That was life-changing,” she says.
“I had to go full on.”
She stopped flirting with DJing and
committed. “After that, doors started
opening,” she says. “I started to have
the time to do the things I wanted to
do.” She left business school and start-
ed studying sound engineering. She
built her home studio. She got sucked
into the hardware.
No story is straight
Yamaho isn’t hiding under tables and
slipping songs into her sets anymore.
In 2013 she won a DJ contest and land-
ed a set at the world-famous Pacha in
Ibiza. “I drove myself completely men-
tal preparing for that set,” she recalls.
“I was so stressed out by the end I felt
like I didn’t know how to DJ anymore.
Like I needed DJ lessons.”
Yamaho is determined not to let the
upcoming set at Berghain break her
down the same way. “It’s a trap you can
fall into: start imagining what peo-
ple want. Then you cease to be you,”
she says. “Some DJs have everything
planned out. I don’t do that. I need the
interaction.” For Yamaho, it’s always
been about the journey. Where’s she’s
heading—whether in a set or in a ca-
reer—that’s up to the crowd. And how
she’ll get there, well, it’s still being
written.
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MUSIC
NEWS
Music
Words
PARKER
YAMASAKI
Photo
TIMOTHÉE
LAMBRECQ
DJ OF THE ISSUE
What’s Unwritten
DJ Yamaho has something to say with her set
West-Iceland