Reykjavík Grapevine - 24.05.2019, Blaðsíða 28

Music

The rise of cold-wave goth
queens and 2018 Grapevine
cover stars Kælan Mikla
continues. Next on their path to world
domination is a slot at the Cure-
curated Pasadena Daydream Festival
in the United States on August 31st. The
lineup includes US alt-rock legends
Pixies and Throwing Muses, alongside
post-rock pioneers Mogwai, The Twi-
light Sad, Chelsea Wolfe and more. It
will take place at Brookside at the Rose
Bowl, and tickets are on sale now for
$149 general admission, and $299 VIP.

Valgeir Sigurðsson received an award
at the International Composer’s
Conference, which took place between
14th-18th May in San Carlos de
Bariloche in Argentina. The 66th
Rostrum of Composers highlighted ten
pieces from all over the world,
including ‘Dust,’ a three-part piece
composed by Valgeir for the recently-
released album of violinist and
Bedroom Community signing Daniel
Pioro. A total of 50 pieces were
nominated by the 27 national radio
stations, with the ten selected works
receiving airplay and exposure around
the world as a result.
Hatari’s Eurovision run seems to have
resulted in pretty much everyone
being mad with them. But they found a
one new fan in HBO satirical news host
John Oliver, who described Eurovision
as “like America’s Got Talent, but minus
the America and, frequently, the tal-
ent.” He gleefully highlighted Hatari’s
“magnificent” performance, ending
a segment about Donald Trump’s ill-
conceived trade tariffs on China with:
“This leaves us in the frankly ridiculous
position where the current Presi-
dent of the United States may have a
genuinely less informed take on global
economics than a leather-wrapped
Icelandic dystopian techno band.”
Hatari, it seems, mun sigra.
MUSIC
NEWS
Chamber Jazz
Meet the Mikael Máni Trio
Words: John Rogers Photo: Spessi Hallbjörnsson
Album
‘Bobby’ will be released on May 31st.
A release show will take place at
Harpa on June 9th
Mikael Máni appears on the screen,
fresh-faced and smiling from
amongst the digital distortion of a
slow Skype connection. He’s in his
current hometown of Stockholm,
where he lives with his jazz singer
girlfriend as she studies for her MA.
Back home in Iceland, his debut
album—’Bobby’ by the Mikael Máni
Trio, of which he’s the primary com-
poser, band leader and guitarist—is
about to be released. He seems re-
laxed, happy, and optimistic about
the record. “It was recorded Sep-
tember 29th and 30th last year, at
Sundlaugin,” he says. “It’s my first
album of original compositions. So
it feels personal.”
No repetition
Whilst the album is primarily jazz,
it has an atmospheric, melodic
richness that suggests it could also
sit comfortably in the record col-
lections of Tortoise, Nick Drake or
Lambchop fans. At times, it’s brisk,
bright and energetic; at others, it
lurches along unexpectedly, inter-
spersed with meditative passages
and taut scribbles of guitar from
Mikael.
“I look at the music as chamber
jazz, with some progressive melo-
dies,” he says. “Much jazz from the
golden era is the circle form—the
same 32 bars repeated, with differ-
ent soloists giving their opinions on
the form, like poets writing about
the same subject. This is more lin-
ear—the parts serve a certain pur-
pose, and don’t repeat.”
The trio behind the record is
something of a dream team, fea-
turing Mikael on guitar, Skúli Sver-
risson on bass, and Magnús Tryg-
gvason Eliassen on drums. “I felt
when I was working with them that
the composition that’s on the paper
is only 40% of what the song ends up
being,” says Mikael. “The other 60%
comes from the interaction with the
players, and the arrangements we
found together. The grooves of the
song weren’t written on the page—
we had to jam out small sections for
half an hour, to get the right atmos-
phere.”
Mikael is full of respect and
praise for his collaborators. “They
both have this improviser stamp
on them, which is great,” he says.
“But their attention to detail on the
arrangements was really deep. I’ve
never experienced that before.”
Bad taste
The album will be released on Sme-
kkleysa, the long-lived Icelandic la-
bel that was the launchpad for The
Sugarcubes, and has since released
many of the finest artists on the Ice-
landic music scene. “It’s a legendary
label, and all of us band members
think so,” says Mikael. “A lot of my
favourite artists are on Smekkleysa.
For a nine-month period of my life,
I think I listened only to Sigur Rós,
every day.”
“Ási Jónsson, the label’s manager,
has been helping me a lot in this
process,” he continues. “As a mu-
sician, I mainly hang around with
people who love making music more
than listening. Ási’s love of listen-
ing to music is one of the most in-
spiring things I have encountered
in my life.”
Mikael will return to Reykjavík
for a release concert on June 9th be-
fore moving back at the end of the
summer. While he is enjoying his
time away—spent largely in seclu-
sion, to compose and focus on his
solo work—he seems excited about
the prospect of coming home. “Peo-
ple really go for a personal way of
making music in Iceland,” he finish-
es. “There’s less traditional jazz and
bebop—it’s more of a melting pot,
like the band ADHD. You can hear
influences from all kinds of genres.
There’s an inspiring diversity.”
gpv.is/music
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The chamber jazz maestro likes linear composition
A Hatari fan, yesterday
Award-winning violinist Daniel Pioro
The coldwave front
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