Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.02.2017, Side 27

Music 26The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 02 — 2017Go big or go home
Halldór Laxness
– Wayward Heroes
When ‘Wayward
Heroes’ (‘Gerpla’, in
Icelandic) was first
published in 1952,
three years before
Laxness received
the Nobel Prize in
Literature, it caused
quite a commo-
tion. Critics saw the
book as poking fun
at Iceland's most
prized possession:
the Icelandic sagas,
the founding stones
of the Icelandic
identity. The book
borrows the form of
the sagas and follows
oath-brothers Thor-
geir and Thormod in
their misadventures,
taking part in Viking
raids and seduc-
ing women across
Europe while avoiding
the new and ludi-
crous doctrines of
the cult of Christian-
ity—which seems
to be cropping up
everywhere around
them. It’s a raucously
funny tale with darkly
comic depictions of
slapstick violence,
but beneath the
humour is a com-
mentary about the
cost of pride and the
post-war culture's
obsession with the
"heroic" principles of
violent domination.
The new translation
published in 2016
marks the first time
‘Gerpla’ has been
translated directly
into English from the
original Icelandic.
Guðrún Eva
Mínervudóttir
– The Creator
‘The Creator’ is
filled with damaged
people. There is
Sveinn, an isolated
and lonely maker
of high-quality sex
dolls that he sells to
other lonely men for
companionship and
sexual release. His
simple life becomes
complicated after a
chance encounter
with Lóa, a mother of
two on the brink of a
nervous breakdown
due, in part, to her
daughter Margrét's
frightening anorexia
and social phobia. In
a misguided spurt
of motherly love,
Lóa steals one of
Sveinn's sex dolls,
intending to use it
to help her daughter
overcome her revul-
sion of all things
physical by provid-
ing her with an unob-
trusive companion-
ship. The theft leads
to a further mingling
of their two lives,
expertly captured by
Guðrún Eva through
a split-perspective
narrative that brings
to the forefront,
sometimes humor-
ously and some-
times tragically, the
incomprehension of
human interactions.
Icelandic Reads
February's favorites, new and old.
Words BJÖRN HALLDÓRSSON
If all this trip-hop
dream pop has you feel-
ing a little lightheaded,
leave it to Singapore
Sling to get your feet back on the
ground. Next month the band re-
leases their ninth LP, ‘KILL KILL KILL
(Songs About Nothing)’. In anticipa-
tion they’ve surfaced the video for
spooky psychedelic “Riffermania”
off the forthcoming LP. The video
features a flashing dance party in
deep red hues and the not-so-subtle
lyrics “kill, kill, kill” repeated in a way
that will make you want to... dance
and clap along.

Digging the depths of the internet
can be an enriching process, but
there’s nothing like seeing your
faves up close and personal. Sónar
Reykjavík happens this month from
February 16-18. Now in its fifth
Reykjavík edition, the festival is a
well-balanced showcase of popular
Icelandic acts like GKR, Samaris, FM
Belfast and Sin Fang (you know the
list by now) and international names
like Fatboy Slim and De La Soul. Head
into Harpa for the three-day take-
over and help steam up that gleaming
10,000-window face.
Over the ocean on the East Coast
of the US, the European presence
has long been felt. But across the
continent, California is an entirely
different land. This year, for three
full weeks in April, the Los Ange-
les Philharmonic have teamed up
with Esa-Pekka Salonen and Daníel
Bjarnason to curate the first-ever
aptly named “Reykjavík Festival” at
the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA.
The festival aims to be varied and
representative, from three consecu-
tive performances by Sigur rós with
the LA Philharmonic to an IMX-
curated night featuring amiina, múm,
Skúli Sverrisson and Ólöf Arnalds,
dj. flugvél og geimskip and JFDR. As
they say in LA: only bangers.
MUSIC
NEWS
SiGRÚN’s first EP, ‘Hringsjá’, judders
into life with a couple of blasts of bas-
sy distortion. It quickly dissolves into
washes of wordless vocal harmonies
before evolving again into a shattered,
powerful rhythm. It’s devoutly experi-
mental, bringing to mind a DIY ver-
sion of Nico Muhly’s ‘Mothertongue’-
era compositions, or sketches made
using the same ink that Björk used on
‘Medúlla’.
“It’s a mashup of things that have
really inspired me,” says Sigrún,
brightly. “I would describe it as a melt-
ing pot. I’ve been inspired by electron-
ic music that has some classical music
elements. The point where crazy dub-
step or club music meets composition
and choir music.”
This meeting point is a culmina-
tion of Sigrún’s musical interests over
more than a decade. She started play-
ing young, under the steady influence
of a drum teacher father, before gradu-
ating to clarinet and them trombone
in music school. It would prove to be a
fortuitous switch.
Tour school
“I was playing in lots of bands and ran-
dom projects,” Sigrún recalls. “Then
when I was seventeen or eighteen I
played on the ‘Volta’ tour with Björk.
When I came home, I started studying
composition. In the middle of that, I
went on a tour with Sigur rós. Then I
finished school, and went on tour with
Florence and the Machine.”
These huge tours came very early in
Sigrún’s development. “I’d only been
on one or two band camps to Ger-
many,” she says. “The girls from the
brass band on ‘Volta’ still make fun
of me once in awhile. I had no idea
what I was getting into. I had all these
towels in my suitcase… I didn’t know
anything. I had my schoolbooks with
me, and sometimes when there was an
afterparty going on in one room, I’d be
sitting in the other room studying.”
Owning it
Being part of such large-scale tours
instilled in Sigrún a strong will to
spread her wings and make music of
her own. “I was a bit fed up of touring,”
she says. “I wanted to make something
happen on my own. To take control.
It’s a fun thing to drift in and out of
big projects, but I wanted more of a
part of the creative process—not to be
a guest, but to own some of it. Going
on tour is a repetition—you play the
same thing every night. I thought the
repetition might be worth more if I
had a bigger stake in the music.”
The resulting SiGRÚN solo project
got off to fast start. “Our first show
was at Iceland Airwaves,” says Sigrún.
“We did a release concert just before
Christmas as our third show. Sónar
will probably be our fourth. I want to
really play with the live show and de-
velop it in 2017. I’ve been playing with a
band: Hilma sings with me, and Kjar-
tan plays drum pads. We just added
a second drum pads player, to spread
the responsibility, and play with it.”
Whilst the SiGRÚN project is still
taking formative first steps, the signs
are promising. “It’s been liberating,”
Sigrún smiles, “like nothing I ex-
pected, and everything I expected. It’s
scary how time disappears. I made
eight songs in half a year. So if I want
to make a full album, I need to get go-
ing! I need to think about how I want
it to be, and how I want it to sound. My
fingers are itching.”
SHARE: gpv.is/sig02
Words
JOHN
ROGERS
Photo
ART BICNICK
Raising The Stakes
After tours with Björk and Sigur rós, SiGRÚN goes solo