Reykjavík Grapevine - 19.07.2019, Síða 25

cessible to everyone. It was al-
ways a quest for finding samples
other people don’t have access to.
I wanted my source to go back one
step further. And this still carries
with me today.”
It made for interesting, fresh
music with an intentionally retro
feel. But the patchwork of un-
cleared samples made his early
music all-but unreleasable; to-
day, these albums are still only
available on Bandcamp. “I make
things very difficult for myself,”
Sveinbjörn grins. “Both on pur-
pose, and unintentionally. You
could start with my artist name.
People see my shows, and after-
wards they have no idea who was
playing. They can’t even write it
down. I just say, ‘Forget about it!
Enjoy that you saw it and don’t try
to look for my music, ever.’ There’s
a self-destructive vibe. It clashes
with me wanting to be as famous
as… Deadmau5. No wait, don’t say
Deadmau5. Say Daft Punk.”
His next two albums were re-
worked, largely instrumental cov-
ers of much-loved Icelandic pop
classics. “Also a legal grey area,”
he laughs. “But there’s a thread.
When digging for records, I’d
stumble on these weird Moog
cover albums. If I could find the
shittiest Beatles cover, played on
a synth with all the wrong notes,
that would be my favourite ver-
sion. I chase whatever unicorn
I find interesting, and it always
turns out to be a problem.”
A new hope
So it was that his sparkling, char-
acteristically playful fifth solo al-
bum was entitled ‘I’. “It was a new
starting point,”
says Sveinbjörn.
But it would take
four years for the
sequel to emerge.
After tempting
hints in singles
“Solitaire” and
“Vape Aquatic,”
he dropped the much-anticipated
‘II’ on December 23rd 2018, in the
heart of the publicity black hole of
the Christmas period.
It was worth the wait. A gleam-
ing, pristine soundscape that con-
tains all of the
charm and mis-
chief of his early
works, ‘II’ adds
an appealing and
ea sy-goi ng ac-
cessibli lty. The
dreamy artwork
felt of-the-mo-
ment in a way that Hermigervill’s
work had never quite before, mov-
ing his musical identity from the
margins to the zeitgeist.
It’s as close as Hermigervill
has come to releasing pop. “It was
purposefully not retrospective,
sound-wise,” says Sveinbjörn. “It’s
a take on today. Part of that was
influenced by hanging out with
Logi Pedro and Sturla Atlas and
the 101derland guys. I wanted to
do a take on the hip-hop and trap
that has been very present here
in Iceland, but with sound design
instead of rap as the focus.”
Icelandic Beyoncé
All of this made it even more of a
surprise when a Facebook mes-
sage popped up on July 7th. “Hey!
Here's a little heads up... got a full
new album up this weekend. It’s
called Hermigervill Presents: The
Future Sound Of Iceland.”
“I made this record in a week-
end,” says Sveinbjörn. “I started
with nothing on Friday, and had
a record by Monday.”
A darker, sleeker proposition
entirely, his new snap-release is
a concept album about a future
dystopian Iceland. “There are
tracks called ‘Global Warming’
and ‘Population 400k,’ which
we’re approaching now,” he ex-
plains. “‘Tokyavík’ is like Reyk-
javík with a neon skyline. And
there’s ‘Dead Island,’ about how
after we’ve wiped ourselves out,
the island will still be here. It’s the
big thing that’s going on today.
We’ve trashed our planet and we
don’t know if there’s hope for us,
or not.”
So is this the start of the more
serious Hermigervill? He pauses,
his eyes gleaming with amuse-
ment. “I mean, the end of Iceland.
How is that not funny?
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“We’ve trashed
our planet and
we don’t know if
there’s hope for
us, or not.”
25The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 12— 2019
Both eyes on the future