Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.03.2017, Síða 36

Music
NO BUN
NO FUN
Gone are the days of
A-sides and B-sides,
we’re in the world of
track by track. Listeners
are often seduced away from narrative
storytelling and continuous threads by
the Spotify temptress, and the “new-
here-now” workflow. But last month
Auður, one of Reykjavík’s newest-her-
est-nowists, released his debut album
‘Alone’ with a one-shot music video
that runs its entire length. “The album
is one continuous flow, written about
one concept by myself alone on one
single microphone, so it made sense
to me,” he says. The album includes
nine songs that bleed into one another
and can be looped endlessly. The video
features Auður, only Auður. Thirty-two
minutes and twenty-nine seconds of
Auður. It was shot by Snorri Sturluson,
whose portfolio brims with unorthodox
music videos, like Fufanu’s VR video for
“Plastic People” and Sigur Rós’s “route
One” slow-tv extravaganza. Auður says
he treated the album as “a concrete
entity” and always included its visual
representation as part of the package.
‘Alone’ arrived as the full package, tied
with a single, continuous, looping bow.

While Auður lays concrete for his own
sturdy, planned foundation, Lord
Pusswhip takes a sledgehammer in
hand and smashes his own. The music
and art collective FALK (Fuck Art Let’s
Kill) released ‘Lord Pusswhip Is Dead’
in mid-February. It is the first release
from the collective in 2017, and one
that almost didn’t come to fruition:
“With no tracks or artwork forthcom-
ing, and with no way of getting in
contact, FALK was facing up to the
possibility of having to delay or even
shelve this release. Then 1 week ago,
we received a WeTransfer link contain-
ing 20 tracks, artwork based on the
obituary notice, and a short, cryptic
message,” writes one representative
of FALK. The material dump—which has
come to be known as ‘Lord Pusswhip Is
Dead’—is the artist’s own selection of
tracks from 2011 to date, and the end
of Lord Pusswhip as we know it.

Pusswhip may have committed
metaphorical self-murder, but his
rap contemporary, Emmsjé Gauti, is
alive and thriving. Gauti took home
four awards from the annual Icelandic
Music Awards, held on March 2. That’s
the same number that Björk took
home from the awards last year. Just
saying. Gauti grabbed rap album of the
year, artist of the year, best performer
and song of the year. Other awards
went to Kaleo for rock album of the
year; Júníus Meyvant for pop album of
the year; Samaris for best electronic
album; Valdimar for best rock song,
“Slétt og Fellt”; Hildur for pop song
of the year, “Walk With You”; and One
Week Wonder for music video of the
year.

I can’t remember the last issue that
came out without word of a new
release from Jófríður Ákadóttir. We
thought, maybe, this would be the
onet hat the prolific musician—whose
projects include Samaris, Pascal Pi-
non, GANGLY and, most recently, a solo
outing as JFDR—had finally stopped to
breathe. But it seems that breathing
comes only as naturally as singing for
her, and on March 3 we got another
exhale on the lead single of Low Roar’s
forthcoming album ‘Once In A Long,
Long While’. PY
MUSIC
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Sound
And Vision
The graphic electronica of Án
Words: Steindór Grétar Jónsson Photo: Art Bicnick
Thursday March 9
22:00 Húrra
“I used to think everything sucked
if it wasn't rock,” admits Án,
known to his friends and family
as Elvar Smári Júlíusson. In Janu-
ary, the 21-year-old electronica
producer released his debut EP,
‘Ljóstillífun’ (“Photosynthesis”),
—a minimalistic slow burn of
synthesized soundscapes, bass
drum kicks and sombre piano
melodies.
“I'm from the suburbs,” Elvar
chuckles. “I was always a post-rock
indie kid. It wasn't until I started
sneaking into downtown night-
clubs at sixteen or seventeen that
I heard electronic music. You need
to experience electronic music
to understand it—the space, and
how the sound system feels. Shitty
Bluetooth speakers won’t do.”
Despite his young age, Elvar's
taste has gone through permuta-
tions. As a teenager, he dreamed
of forming a band, as he spent his
time composing alternative rock
songs by himself, with just an am-
plifier and “sick amounts” of re-
verb and delay. “I never found a col-
laborator,” he says. “So as I started
getting more into electronica it
was obvious that I should do it on
my own.”
Graphic design
as music
The piano features heavily on
‘Ljóstillífun’, but the instrument is
a recent addition to Elvar's arsenal.
“I played the guitar,” he says. “Then
the composer Hafdís Bjarnadóttir
taught me piano for the last three
years of my studies. With her, it
somewhat stopped being about the
guitar, and became more focused
on writing music. We turned to the
piano, and other instruments.”
Elvar studies graphic design at
the Iceland Academy of Arts, and
feels his two disciplines—music
and visual art—influence each
other. In fact, most of the indi-
vidual track names on the record
are references to graphic design
terms, including the Icelandic
words for contrast, grid and ratio.
“The electronic music that
most resonates with me is made
by graphic designers,” he explains.
“You can just feel it. Like Guðmun-
dur Úlfarsson's Good Moon Deer
and Anton Kaldal's Tonik Ensem-
ble. I feel it when I look at their
designs and listen to their music
that it's the same thing. Only one
is sonic and the other visual.”
Needless to say, Elvar designs his
own album artwork.
Without the elements
Elvar's first release comes out on
Möller Records, founded by vet-
eran electronic producers Skurken
and Futuregrapher. “I'm a new-
comer to the scene, but everyone's
very friendly,” says Elvar. “I didn't
grow up in the loop. I'm not from a
family of artists.”
His moniker Án—the Icelandic
word for “without”—feels apropos
to Elvar's minimalistic music. “I
strip down my tracks, remove ele-
ments until there's less and less
and fewer pronounced sounds,” he
explains. “Electronic music can feel
cluttered to me. It works for some
people, but it's not my approach.”
The process is time-consum-
ing: rebuilding a track, block by
block, until it's turned into a dif-
ferent animal entirely. “All of a
sudden I've switched out every
component until it's a completely
new song, maybe ten times,” he
says, conceding with a smile: “I
should probably stop it.”