Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.04.2017, Page 27

Enough” fade in. Valgeir originally
composed the piece for the City of
London Sinfonia in honour of 17th
century composer John Dowland,
but edited out around half of it to fit
the album. “I felt I had a record that
worked as a whole,” says Valgeir,
“and I don’t think that the record-
ed and the performance versions
need to be the same, anyway.”
A prolific producer and mas-
tering engineer, Valgeir has col-
laborated with an impressive list
of talent, including Damon Al-
barn, Oneohtrix Point Never and
CocoRosie, as well as country-
men Jóhann Jóhannsson, Hildur
Guðnadóttir and Sigur rós. Some
of the qualities that make him
in demand are evident when he
speaks: he’s focussed, yet warm
and approachable. Despite his
busy schedule, he finds time for
his solo projects, which he asserts
are never an insular endeavour.
“Making mu-
sic is always col-
laborative,” he
says. “Someone
m ay h ave t he
guiding vision,
but operating in
isolation is not
for me. In art you
need a dialogue
to ex pa nd the
project. You keep learning some-
thing new, discovering something
old or finding new styles of music
that you hadn't heard before. It
opens new dimensions. If you're
set in your own ways it's like work-
ing a conveyor belt. Assembling a
box according to your prescribed
formula and moving on to the
next one doesn’t appeal to me.”
However, there is something
deeply personal about the album,
with Valgeir's explorations lead-
ing to a particular outcome that
only he could arrive at. “There
is a kind of sound which I feel
is mine to pursue,” says Valgeir.
“Nobody else is going to take it
and run with it, and it's a cleans-
ing process to package it as a solo
album and keep a forward mo-
mentum. I can leave my train of
thought and open up to new ideas.”
1875
The closing piece starts with sud-
den intensity before subsiding
into an eerie calm, almost as if
it means to lure the listener into
a false sense of security. Titled
“1875,” the piece was commis-
sioned on the occasion of the
125th anniversary of Icelandic
settlement in Manitoba, Canada.
“It represents the voyage,” says
Valgeir. “It started with a bang—
a volcanic eruption—before the
travellers set out on an uncertain
journey. And they ended up in an
even colder place than Iceland.”
Despite his international ac-
claim, Valgeir remains based in
Iceland, working from his Green-
house studio with his labelmates.
“I like living here,” he explains,
“even though I
have problems
with the politics
and the socia l
str uct ure. I 've
lived abroad and
I travel a lot for
work , but it 's
always good to
c o m e h o m e .”
Bedroom Com-
munity, the label Valgeir founded
with Nico Muhly and Ben Frost,
celebrated its tenth anniversary
last year, and recently started
working with newcomers aYia.
“We're creating room for Bed-
room Community to function as
a platform for music that we like,”
explains Valgeir, “but aren't nec-
essarily hands-on involved in.”
The label also continues to
grow internationally, as was al-
ways the plan. “We started ex-
panding straight away, because
we never saw the label as having
a chance in Iceland,” finishes Val-
geir. “It's a small society, and our
music is, shall we say… eccentric.”
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Culture Feature 27The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 05 — 2017
“I stretched the 40
seconds out to 23
minutes. The move-
ment is the same as
Mozart envisioned,
only much slower”
“The story goes
that the sheet
music was sent
back from the
printer because
it had to be a
mistake”
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