Reykjavík Grapevine - nov. 2019, Síða 26

The R
eykjavík G
rapevine
Iceland A
irw
aves Special 20
19
26
In a cluttered, unassuming base-
ment deep in the heart of West
Reykjavík is the nerve centre of
one of the pioneering legends
of Icelandic indie music: Sindri
Már Sigfússon, perhaps better
known to the world as Seabear or
Sin Fang. Emerging in Iceland’s
explosive music scene of the
early 2000s, almost entirely by
accident, this unassuming but
uniquely talented soul got his
start in the visual arts. Through
a homemade EP he made more
or less on a whim, he has since
then been catapulted into in-
ternational fame, working on
everything from his own solo
projects to film scores and even
commercials. And he’s still not
finished.
Seabear, assemble!
For reasons Sindri admits he
still doesn’t understand, that
debut EP somehow made itself
into the hands of a German la-
bel called Tomlab. They released
a Seabear song on one side of a
7”, opposite a song from Grizzly
Bear, and booked him to perform
in Berlin.
There was just one
problem: he now
needed a band.
"At that point I wasn't around
that many musicians who I knew
could play with me,” he says.
“There was an amazing girl at
my school who was a violin play-
er, so I asked her, and this friend
of mine I used to skateboard
with from Hafnarfjörður who I
knew played guitar. It ended up
being the three of us going to
Berlin.”
By his own account, this live
show was intensely emotional,
but would lead to even bigger
things.
“I was so nervous, I was black-
out shaking nervous,” Sindri re-
calls. “It was a sold out crowd.
It was only a few years ago that
I started considering myself a
musician. I've always felt like a
music fan who started making
music, which I guess is another
word for severe imposter syn-
drome. At that point, having
all these people working at that
theatre, being really nice, and
so many people are working
around this event and I was just
like, 'What am I doing here? I
don't belong here. I'm not even
at an amateur level musician and
I'm playing in front of all these
people.' But we did the show and
it went pretty well. I think the
extreme nervousness and am-
ateurism helped me on stage a
bit.”
It helped him indeed: the
show so impressed another Ger-
man label, Morr Music, that they
approached him about signing
with them. Sindri, who knew
Thom Yorke had bought Morr
Music’s entire catalogue, “said
yes on the spot”. Which meant
that he had to make an album.
“I guess I’m a
musician now”
Despite being one of the Icelan-
dic indie music scene’s iconic
figures, Sindri did not really
consider himself a musician un-
til much later on in his career.
He recalls being struck with the
realisation when Seabear played
Iceland Airwaves in 2009 at a
packed show at Iðnó with a queue
stretching down the block.
“I remember after the show I
was thinking, 'I guess I'm a mu-
sician now. I'm gonna play music
and people are going to see it,'”
he says. “I was just so happily
surprised with the way my life
had turned out because I never
really expected it. It was a dream
that was too big for me to even
think about, to be a successful
musician."
Seabear
THU 7th, 19:00, Kex Hostel
SAT 8th, 22:20. Reykjavík Art Museum
“I was so
nervous,
I was
blackout
shaking
nervous.”
The mind behind Seabear and Sin Fang opens up
Words: Andie Fontaine Photo: Anna Maggý
Irons In The
Fire:
The
Serendipity of
Sindri Már
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