Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.10.2018, Blaðsíða 38

The Birth Of
The Pop Alien
Katrín Helga evolves into Special K
Words: Tara Njála Ingvarsdóttir Photo: Art Bicnick
Concert
Special-K will be opening the night
for ‘Kriki’ at Húrra on August 14th for a
double dose of Katrín, and check out
her website at www.special-k-spe-
cial-k.com
Katrín Helga looks up, smiles, and
shuts her computer, on which she’s
been editing a video she shot for
Mr. Silla. “I’ve been exploring dif-
ferent mediums all my life,” she
begins. “Theatre, music, dance,
and visual arts.”
Chances are, if you follow Ice-
landic music, you’ll have seen Ka-
trín Helga Andrésdóttir. A found-
ing member of Reykjavíkurdætur
and Kirki, she’s been active in the
Reykjavík music scene for years.
She plays and tours with Sóley and
her solo project, Special-K, debut-
ed last year. Her visual album, ‘I
Thought I’d be More Famous by
Now,’ will be released in October.
Katrín Helga’s music intends
to start conversations about the
issues of everyday millennials,
including sex-positivism, impost-
er syndrome, the mundane con-
sumer, and the internet. “Before
I was in Reykjavíkurdætur I was
in a controversial band called Hl-
jómsveitt,” she says. “The name
is a pun for ‘sweaty tunes’ on the
word ‘Hljómsveit,’ which just
means ‘band.’ It specialised in sex-
ual music.”
Along with her many other pro-
jects, Katrín Helga has been play-
ing in sóley’s band for two years.
“Sóley has been a mentor to me,”
she says. “A year and a half ago she
asked me ‘Katrín, when is your solo
album coming?’ I thought: ‘okay, I
have to do it now.’”
There’s no one like you
That’s when Special-K was born.
“The name Special-K is firstly a
reference to the breakfast cereal
that’s very normcore and an ode
to the everyday,” explains Katrin
Helga. “Also, it’s a reference to how
our generation has been told since
we were young that we are special
or unique.”
She calls it the “snowflake syn-
drome.” “It results in everybody
having the delusion that they’re
just a little bit better than every-
body else, and that fame and glory
are waiting around the corner,”
she laughs. “Then you enter the
real world and reality doesn’t live
up to your expectations. It comes
as a shock, and you become de-
pressed, comparing yourself to
glossy images of other people’s
lives on social media.”
Pop-alien-post-
internet-being
Katrín Helga has focused on a
strong visual concept behind the
project, partially thanks to her re-
cently inked degree in Visual Arts.
“Special-K is an alien being with
bleached eyebrows and hair, who
finds itself in absurd roles and sit-
uations,” she says. “For my final
piece, I made a video to each of the
twelve songs on the album, which
ended with a karaoke installation
performance at Kjarvalstaðir.”
She performed songs from the
album, including ‘Date me I’m
Bored’ and ‘Imposter Syndrome
Self-Help Song.’ Most of the videos
were made in collaboration with
other artists including Mr. Silla,
Jóhanna Rakel, and Elín Elísabet
Einarsdóttir.
Small in Japan
Recently Katrín Helga connected
with a manager based in Los Ange-
les. “He’d seen a video I made—at
first when he contacted me on In-
stagram I thought he was a creepy
stalker,” she smiles. “He’s hiding it
well if he is. He’s proven to be very
professional. You just never dare
to believe that those opportunities
are out there.”
Katrín Helga will travel out to
LA to meet him and make some
new material this autumn. “The
first album was lo-fi and home-
made,” she says. “The next one
will be more poppy. The album is
also being released in Japan on a
limited cassette, which is very un-
derground and grossly indie,” she
smiles. “So I haven’t gone all the
way pop.”
Music
Katrín Helga thought she'd be more famous by now
“They tell you
you can do
anything, that
there’s no
one like you.
Then when
you enter the
world, and it's
not like that.
It comes as a
shock.”
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