Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.10.2018, Blaðsíða 36

Music

Acclaimed producer and DJ
President Bongo—a former
member of GusGus—has
announced a new solo record. The re-
lease is the third in the LAPB (Les Aven-
tures De President Bongo) series—an
ambitious endeavour wherein Bongo
“assumes the role of producer/instiga-
tor/artistic director, tasking some of
modernity‘s most revered musicians
with expanding their horizons.” This will
result in 24 LPs released over the next
seven years. The third in the series,
entitled ‘Quadrantes,’ is a collaboration
between the Prez himself and Óttar S,
to be released on September 21st with
remixes by Sonic Deception and Yotam
Avni. JR

The New York Times reported recently
that Iceland Airwaves has become the
first festival to boast a lineup featur-
ing at least as many female as male
performers. Airwaves’ effort is part of
the global Keychange initiative, which
109 festivals have signed on to, with
the goal of achieving gender parity of
festival lineups by 2022. According to
Iceland Airwaves’ head of operations,
Will Larnach-Jones, it was easy to
reach their goal: “We looked at people
we really liked, and then in meetings
said, ‘Do we have enough?’ Happily we
always did.” NE

Gyða Valtýsdóttir, whose album of
reworked classical compositions
‘Epicycle’ met with great acclaim in
2017, has unveiled a video for
“Moonchild.” It’s her first original solo
work to be released under the new
project name G Y D A, and the first taste
of a solo album ‘Evolution’ that will
come out on figureight this Septem-
ber. Gyða rose to prominence as a
member of múm, but has been
gradually weaving an intriguing world
in her solo performances; the new
song is a haunting, gossamer-delicate
composition that promises great
things for the LP. We premiered it: hear
it at grapevine.is/music. JR
MUSIC
NEWS
The Architect
And The Engineer
Hugar expand their horizons
Words: Christine Engel Snitkjær Photo: Nat Kontraktewicz

Tour
See Hugar’s European tour dates at
hugar.is or Facebook, and listen on
Spotify.
Remember when you were a child
and the teacher would ask the class,
“what do you want to be when you
grow up?” You’d quickly answer the
first thing that came to mind, be-
fore realising that there was more
than one answer—maybe you want
to become a singer, but also a fire-
man. And a dancer. There were so
many careers to pick from, so many
interesting ways to occupy your time.
How could you ever possibly decide?
Neo-classical post-rock duo
Hugar believe you shouldn’t have
to. “I think people won’t just be de-
fined as one thing in the future,”
says Pétur Jónsson, one of the two
members of the band. “You won’t
just be an architect or an engineer.
Maybe you’ll be an engineer who is
also a chef.” Bergur Þórisson, the
other member, adds: “For both of
us, doing many different things has
to do with the Icelandic mentality
that nobody can just do one thing.”
Many different things
Alongside their careers as musicians,
both Pétur and Bergur have other
occupations. Pétur just finished a
degree in architecture, forming the
foundation of his future as an archi-
tect. Bergur is an acclaimed record-
ing engineer who has worked with
artists such as Björk, Ólafur Arnalds,
and the late Jóhann Jóhannsson.
“I think that it ben-
efits music-making to
work on many differ-
ent things,” Bergur re-
flects. “Going to uni-
versity, for instance, is really healthy
and it opens your mind to new things.”
The beginning of Hugar
Bergur and Pétur have known each
other as long as they can remem-
ber. They studied music in the same
school and were in various bands
throughout their adolescence. Hugar
began when Bergur was looking after
Danish musician Tina Dickow’s stu-
dio while she was on vacation with
her husband, Helgi Jónsson. Bergur
was assisting Helgi at the time, and
was handed the studio keys with
the words: “You can do anything.”
“I called Pétur,” Bergur explains,
“and I said, ‘shit, we have to make
something happen!’” Since then,
Bergur and Pétur have released an
album, and given away their music
for free through online streaming
platforms. “These platforms helped
expose our music,” Bergur explains.
“The free downloads paved the road
for us to go travel and tour the world.”
The lyrical narrative
Hugar’s music is instrumental,
which plays a purposeful role for Ber-
gur. “I love how music can express
emotions without putting words on
it,” he says. “We don’t give our music
that narrative of lyrics, where people
know exactly what to think and what
to feel. That’s a big part of why I do it.”
Their other activities aside, Hugar
will tour Europe this autumn, and
they have singles and videos on
the way before the release of their
second album in early 2019. They’ll
tour as a duo, because unlike most
bands with members dedicated to a
single defined role, Hugar do pret-
ty much everything themselves.
From composing to
record engineering
and playing all the
instruments, this
intriguing pair re-
main a self-contained duo in
the true sense of the word.
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EVERY
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KARAOKE PARTY
21.00 / FREE ENTRY
STANDUP COMEDY
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DRAG-SÚGUR QUEER VARIETY SHOW
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gpv.is/music
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Hugar having a laugh, yesterday