Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.06.2017, Qupperneq 39

‘og djöfullinn Sjálfur’
by Skrattar
Words: Hannah Jane Cohen Photo: Junia Lif
T h e w ord “ S k rat-
tar” refers to play-
ful demons. “It’s like
someone who brings mischief,” says
band member Sölvi Magnússon—aka
“Djöfullinn Sjálfur,” or “The Devil
Himself,” in English. Skrattar and
Djöfullinn Sjálfur boys just released
a self-titled EP on resident-shadowy-
alt label Hið myrka man. I sat down
with two out of the three Skrattar,
Kalli and Sölvi, to talk about the new
album.
1. Helför
Sölvi: “Helför" means “a trip to
hell,” but if you put the Icelandic
“the” in front of it—i.e. helförin—
then it means “the Holocaust.” But
this song is just a trip to hell.
Kalli: Yeah, Gulli found this crazy
preacher online, so we put him
over the song and it was just weird
and dark: “It’s not like you’re gon-
na run away!”
2. Genesis
S: I wrote these
lyrics a long time
ago but I showed
them to Gulli one
day when we were
drinking in the stu-
dio. The title “Gen-
esis” came from
when Gulli asked
what he should call
the file name and
in my narcissistic ecstasy, I just
yelled “Genesis Pt. 1!”
3. Splissken ft. Alvia Islandia
S: Snake Plissken is the name of
a character in ‘Escape From New
York’. We asked Alvia to come and
do something
over the song and
in one take, Alvia
freestyled some-
thing and just killed it. She hadn’t
heard the song before I think.
K: The difference between me
and Sölvi recording vocals is that
Sölvi has to be really in the mood
and have the lyrics in front of him.
He doesn’t freestyle, but I pretty
much always do.
S: You barely know the lyrics to the
songs anyway. You should write
them down.
4. Bara Gaman
K: “Bara Gaman” is really sarcas-
tic. The first line is: “It’s boring
here. You’re boring. I’m boring.” I
just freestyled, It’s got a lot of hu-
mor in it, like, “I think it’s boring
to hang out with you. You think
it’s boring to hang out with me.”
5. Clinical Anesthesia
K: That’s Sölvi’s anthem.
S: Originally we didn’t like this
song but we gave it some time and
then were like: “Shit, it’s fucking
good.”
6. Sincere
K: “Sincere” came out of fucking
nowhere. We started the song at
1am, then we came to Prikið for a
few beers and fresh air.
S: I remember it differently.
K: Then we were at the studio with
a lot of people and once the irri-
tating ones were gone, we started
recording. We were on a lot of ec-
stasy or maybe just in ecstasy.
S: “Come on baby, show me that
love” are the only lyrics. But the
next morning, we walked to Ví-
nyl when it opened at 9am. We
used to go there really fucked up
in the morning and
we just took over the
place playing this
song.
7. Glundroði
K: “Glundroði”
means chaos.
S: I wrote these lyr-
ics a long time ago.
The first sentence
is, “This is an at-
tempt to fill a hole
inside of me.” That
was not supposed to be the first
lyric. Originally it was, “If I’m such
a good boy, why do I only want to
do bad stuff? Pills, powder, juice,
all of the above.” But it rhymes in
Icelandic, you know, cause I am a
poet.
K: We are both poets.
39The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 09 — 2017
Grab a bite at Dunkin’ Donuts. We’re open every day.
BAGELS FROM 599 ISK
Laugavegur 3 Kringlan Hagasmári 9 Fitjar KEF Airport
“You barely
know the
lyrics to the
songs anyway.
You should
write them
down.”
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