Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.02.2019, Qupperneq 34

Some Other
Kind Of Void
Disappearing into the world of aYia
Words: Rex Beckett Photos: Art Bicnick & Julie Rowland
Album & Concert
aYia’s self-titled debut album is out
now. They’ll play Berlin’s Kantine am
Berghain on May 19th.
After their live debut at the Secret
Solstice festival in 2016, enigmatic
trio aYia became an overnight buzz-
band, inciting powerful energy and
excitement around their spacious,
chilly, electronic pop music. To see
them perform live evokes the true
power of the trio. Multi-instrumen-
talist producers Kristinn Roach
Gunnarsson and Kári Einarsson
stand wide apart at the front
of the stage, with poetess
vocalist Ásta Fanney Sig-
urðardóttir lurking in the
shadows between. They’re
at once detached from each
other, but also deeply inter-
connected. This subtle phys-
icality enhances the tense
silences and booming drops
of their music, capturing the
audience in a hypnotic swirl.
aYia formed three years
ago. More precisely, the
members intentiona l ly
congealed into a new enti-
ty. “The image of the band
was supposed to be super
secret,” says Kristinn, “be-
cause the whole vibe of the
band is completely different
from our personalities.”
Trying to feel nothing
This distinction between their re-
al-life selves and their group pres-
ence is accentuated by their aes-
thetic, which features masks, hoods
and hidden faces, skirting the line
between presence and disappear-
ance. Their performances have a
sense of lingering mystery; they’re
distant, but not cold or removed. “I
try to become nothing,” says Kári.
“Just the void. I try to be by myself,
with the gear—just trying to feel
nothing.”
“But of course you don’t become
nothing,” continues Ásta. “You just
go beyond yourself, playing this
role as this character. It’s more
like the feeling of leaving yourself
and everything that is part of your
earthly life and going into some
other kind of void.” Kristinn con-
tinues: “I like the idea of it being a
hive-mind. It’s something that con-
nects us—it’s powerful, but we’re
not blasting it out there.”
Just be there
What allows them to enter this
intentional void state is showing
up to write and perform as equal
partners. “Everything is connected
via the music,” says Kristinn. “It’s
like the connection has been made
beforehand so we just have to be
there.”
Their music contains dichoto-
mous elements of airy, featherlight
vocals and tense silences contrast-
ed against massive synth sounds
and pounding beats. “The music is
full of space and quiet,” says Kris-
tinn. “There’s power behind it—but
it’s not showing all the time.”
Ásta adds: “It’s really like you’re
trying to weave and this thing
you’re working with is so delicate,
so you have to do it really precisely
so it will work together.”
Everything is
happening
aYia’s first single, “Water Plant,”
was released in October 2016, and
their self-titled debut album took
over two years to complete due,
in part, to the detailed precision
required to create their
sound. “The final touches
always take the longest,”
says Kristinn.
“It was really just pol-
ishing,” Ásta continues,
“because there’s so much
emphasis on the mix and
getting it really near per-
fection.”
They had some mixing
help from Icelandic su-
per-producer Va lgei r
Sigurðsson, whose work
made everything “so much
more,” according to the
band. The record was re-
leased via Valgeir’s Bed-
room Community label,
and it’s an evocative col-
lection that transports the
listener to places both wonderful
and strange.
“There’s a lot of fear, but when
it’s covered with these massive
sounds it becomes such a contrast...
you feel so much in your spectrum
that everything is happening,” says
Ásta. “You’re like, whoa, what trip
are you taking me on?”
Music
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Suðurgata 41, 101 Reykjavík
The Culture House
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