Reykjavík Grapevine - 12.12.2016, Page 20

The R
eykjavík G
rapevine
Iceland A
irw
aves Special 20
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Typically it’s animal instinct to
flee south for the winter. But
Alvia Islandia, who has spent
the past year in Copenhagen, is
ready to come home. It’s been a
productive year for her on the
European mainland making
music videos, perfecting her
live performance, and releasing
her album ‘Bubblegum Bitch’ in
early June. But a month ago she
quit her job as the shake girl at
Copenhagen’s Laundromat Café
and bought her ticket home.
As she puts it: “I’m not leaving
because I don’t like to be here.
I love it here. But I feel like you
should be where you want at any
given time. Now it’s time for me
to be in Reykjavík.”
It’s not as if she’s heading
back to hole up. Alvia is ready to
hit the ground running. On No-
vember 4 she takes to the stage
at Húrra at Iceland Airwaves,
squished into a nice 22:30 spot
between GKR and Lord Puss-
whip, two of her big influences
in the Icelandic rap scene. Her
other winter plans include pro-
ducing her own beats, drinking
red wine, and getting onto every
child’s Christmas list.
It’s just as easy to imagine
her appeal to a nine-year-old girl
writing to Santa as it is to imag-
ine her in front of the crowd at
Húrra. “I’ve been writing music
since I was sixteen,” she says,
“but it was nothing like the mu-
sic I make now. It’s evolved a lot.
Then I was just a teen, trying to
pull it all together. Now I feel re-
ally comfortable with my music.
I feel like it’s really me.”
Quick Lips
Sink Ships
What is “me?” From this side of
the Atlantic, “me” is one hand
painted with pale yellow nail
polish and the other with bright
pink. It’s a pigtail up-do that
bobs while she bounces around
her seat, never staying too long
in any one corner of the screen
that we’re talking through.
Though in photos she comes
off as the lean-back, droop-in-
the-eyelids kind of cool, Alvia
is charged with energy. It’s ev-
ident in her brightly flavored
style and her quick-lipped lyri-
cism. It’s evident in the way she
bounces around from Prague
to Sweden to Denmark to Reyk-
javík (“I think of the world as my
home,” she tells me). And it’s ev-
ident, lucky for us awaiting her
Airwaves arrival, in her perfor-
mances.
Back in June she caught the
attention of media around the
scene with her Hubba Bubba-fu-
elled show at Secret Solstice
Festival. “I love to perform,”
she nods. “I’m always trying
to improve my show. I saw Die
Antwoord perform this year at
Secret Solstice, they were a kill-
er show. And Gísli Pálmi, he al-
ways gets everyone hyped.” Her
attraction to performance may
stem from being part of a big,
wide-spread family. Or, it could
just be that Alvia really likes to
get hyped.
That’s not to say that her
songs and lyrics are as bubble-
gum-pink as her image. A lot
of times the lyrics—constant-
ly swirling in her head—come
from some sort of dark place.
“Especially when I first started
writing music, I would write
when I was upset,” she says.
“Then it would start to rhyme.
And then, if I was lucky, it would
turn into poetry.” Just like when
she was first starting out, Alvia
writes about what she knows.
And right now, that means:
“Chasing dreams, loving, put-
ting in work, travelling, enjoy-
ing—my vision is Sally pink
mystic vibes and putting myself
into situations that make me
grow in a bubbly way.”
Catch Alvia’s Airwaves perfor-
mance at Húrra on November 4
and her off-venue night at Paloma
on November 3.
Home Is
Where
The Hype
Is Words Parker Yamasaki Photo Nanna RúnarsThe return of Alvia Islandia