Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.11.2017, Page 31

TRACK BY TRACK
‘Aeons’ by Gunnar
Jónsson Collider
A contemplation on death and our ignorance
Words: Gunnar Jónsson & John Rogers Photo: Magnús Andersen
LP
'Aeons' is out now
Gunnar Jónsson Collider is a musi-
cian and producer from Reykjavík,
Iceland. After a couple of storming
sets at Airwaves 2017, we asked
him to talk us through his excellent
krautrock and ambient-inspired
album, ‘Aeons.’
1. Realize/Remember
I built this song around a sample
from some terribly cheesy ‘80s
commercial I found online. It’s
probably the most hip-hop influ-
enced song I’ve ever done, but
maybe I’m the only one who hears
that. The title refers to a personal
experience, where I thought I had
learnt an important lesson about
life. So I made a song to remind me.
What was the lesson? I’d prefer not
to say.
2. DNB3P
DNB3P is one of the first songs I
wrote after buying my old Roland
JX3P synth, which is a wonderful
analog synth. I really wanted this
song to have a drum and bass atti-
tude without being 100% drum and
bass. I love deconstructing genres.
I also mess with the recipe when
I’m baking. That’s just the kind of
bad boy I am! Hopefully the song
works both as a dance number and
an almost-pop song.
3. Doomsday/Surrender
This is the dystopian counterpart
to the first song’s utopian leanings.
It plays with the idea that human-
ity is done for. It’s the oldest song
on the record so I don’t really re-
member making it, except that I
started writing it late one evening
and completely lost track of time.
I remember coming to at about
eight in the morning with a fin-
ished track, having forgotten to
eat, sleep or go to the bathroom.
4. The Dream
I had been listening a lot to King
Tubby and was really keen on in-
jecting some dub vibes. The title
and feel of the song refers to my
view of life as a dream. Conscious-
ness follows a sort of non-linear,
dream-like structure and although
we live in the supposedly Newto-
nian “real world” it is our elusive
thoughts and feelings that give
meaning and depth to any of it.
5. [Silence]
This song is mostly silence. It’s a
tribute to silence, and the lack
thereof. I was going to use a sam-
ple of Eckhart Tolle’s voice at one
point, but his team didn’t allow it.
Note to self: spiritual gurus also
have lawyers that suck! No disre-
spect to Tolle, though.
6. End Scene
The sound at the beginning of the
song is a sample of my voice that
I turned into a synth in a program
called Renoise (the sampler is ex-
cellent!). It’s fun to decontextualise
your voice like that. The title is a ref-
erence to death, which I’ve thought
a lot about lately. I’ve lost people
over the last two years and it’s just
really sad, mind-boggling and a re-
minder that I don’t know anything.
You need to try to love the people
in your life, because they won’t be
there forever.
7. Terraformer
This is the longest song I’ve re-
leased. It’s very new age-y and I
had some reservations about it,
but I’m glad I released it and peo-
ple have really been responding
positively. It’s basically a drawn
out ambient exercise with some
dub elements thrown in to subvert
the whole “relaxing vibe.” It’s still
pretty relaxing. For me, the song
conjures up images of a world a
thousand years in the future, in-
habited solely by terraforming
robots and machinery. It doesn’t
have to do that for everyone, but I’d
love if they do their own daydream-
ing when they listen to my music!
31The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 20 — 2017
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GJC performing at Iceland Airwaves
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IF YOU WANT IT
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