Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.08.2019, Side 34

Music 34The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 13— 2019
The
Renegade
Mister
The overdue return of Mr. Silla
Words: John Rogers Photo: Art Bicnick
Album
‘Hands on Hands’ is out in
September. Follow @mistersilla
on Instagram and @sillasilla on
Facebook for updates
Mr. Silla’s new single is an unex-
pected pop banger. A far cry from
the largely downtempo and emo-
tional sound of her eponymous
2015 debut, “Naruto (say you wan-
na run away)” is three and a half
minutes of un-
abashedly sum-
mery dance-pop.
Its carefree and
catchy centra l
ref ra i n seem s
both tongue in
cheek—check out
those Ibiza pan-pipe trills—and si-
multaneously completely earnest.
It’s Silla’s first solo release since
2015, and the first glimpse of her
new album ‘Hands on Hands.’
“I think I went both ways with
this,” she says, sipping a beer in
the summer sun. “Some of the new
album is way weirder than before
and some of it is way poppier. The
first record was such a specific mo-
ment—it was all about the same
thing. And this is me exploring
other things.”
All the way there
Silla seems to have avoided “dif-
ficult second album” syndrome.
After sketching out some tracks in
London, she went in for a studio
session in her adopted hometown
of Berlin with Sam Slater, an en-
gineer who has worked with such
luminaries as Jóhann Jóhannsson,
Ben Frost and Hildur Guðnadóttir.
“It actually didn’t take long to
make it,” she smiles. “We were go-
ing to do three or
four songs for an
EP, for fun. And
before we knew it
we’d made a whole
record.”
The aesthetic
swerve, says Silla,
was spontaneous. “It was explora-
tory. I wanted to see where things
would go, and then follow the ideas
through. I wanted to take them all
the way there.”
Self-help mantra
Building ‘Hands on Hands’ also
involved creating fresh visual and
lyrical worlds. “The title track is
about how you fit your creative life
into your everyday life,” says Silla.
“Because it’s always supposed to
be this moment. It’s like a self-help
mantra in the studio, bumming
out about writing lyrics. It became
about that it’s hard, and what are
the ways people get out of that trap.
There’s advice from David Byrne
and David Lynch—and me—re-
peated as a long chant.”
Another song is about the trans
experience. “I was listening to a lot
of interviews about being trans-
gender, especially as a young per-
son,” Silla continues. “I was think-
ing about the experience of not
feeling seen by the people you love
the most, and how you react to that
in your relationships growing up.
So there’s a song about that.”
Extreme makeup
The visuals around the album are
another departure. During the
crowdfunding campaign to create
the album, Silla created “extreme
makeup looks”—partially inspired
by drag—with one persona for each
song.
“It’s been growing alongside the
music,” she says. “Some of these
looks were super literal, but some-
times abstract. My favourite was
the character that’s been in the sun
too long and had too many vodka
energy drinks, and got extremely
sunburned.”
With her prefix of “Mister,” and
her visual gender-play, there are a
lot of queer vibes swirling around
the new album. “I do identify as
queer,” says Silla, “which might
seem funny to say when you’re in a
straight relationship. But [my hus-
band] Tyler and I are both on that
spectrum. He really enjoys tradi-
tionally feminine things, and peo-
ple might see me as a more mas-
culine woman. It’s a good fit.” She
smiles, momentarily embodying
the carefree spirit of her new sin-
gle. “That’s just how life goes.”
“It was explor-
atory. I wanted to
see where things
would go.”
Mr. Silla: easier to pronounce than Sigurlaug Gísladóttir
gpv.is/music
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