Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.09.2019, Blaðsíða 35

35The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 16— 2019
Emotional,
Intimate,
A Little
Experimental
Viktor and Yair have created a work of
ambient art with ‘Vast’

Words: Sam O’Donnell Photo: Art Bicnick
Album/ Concert
Album played live in Berlin on
November 9th
Viktor Orri Árnason is probably
best known in Iceland for his
work in the band Hjaltalín, but
lately, he’s been doing his own
thing. Most recently, his own
thing is collaborating with fel-
low Berlin resident and musician
Yair Elazar Glotman to create an
emotional project that somehow
feels simultaneously enormous
and intimate. The duo will play
the album live in Berlin on No-
vember 9th, but
unti l then, they
have more exper-
imenting to do.
“It’s really dif-
f i c u lt t o m a k e
t h i s w o r k l i v e
b e c a u s e o f i s -
sues that would occur when we
start playing the music through
speakers,” says Viktor. “You cre-
ate feedback. And you need all the
microphones to be able to do this,
so that’s going to be a good month
of experimenting.”
Destined to work
together
The collaboration happened al-
most out of nowhere. The two
had never met, but they both
separately contributed to Jóhann
Jóhannsson’s reworked version
of Solari by Ryuichi Sakamoto.
They heard each others’ work and
liked it.
“We were also encouraged to
meet because we had such similar
ways of approaching our instru-
ments,” Viktor says—they both
have a background in classical
music and a love for rock and roll.
“A seminal piece that start-
ed my love for
music was 'L.A.
Woman' by The
D o o r s , ” Y a i r
says. “I found it
on a cassette in
my dad's music
collection when I
was 5-years old.” Meanwhile, Vik-
tor played in a rock band when he
was a kid and won the Icelandic
battle of the bands when he was
12-years old. Both artists gravi-
tated toward classical music at an
early age.
And so, w ith their similar
taste, Viktor invited Yair to his
studio for a play date. They pooled
their resources and knowledge,
pressed record, and began to play.
“An album was not the plan, but
rather a very happy accident,”
Yair says. “Challenging each oth-
er to listen to things differently
was the only suggestion we made
for each track,” Viktor adds.
Don’t call it
experimental
The result is a project that sounds
l ike a score for an epic f i lm.
That’s not surprising, given Vik-
tor’s background working with
Jóhann Jóhannsson and Ólafur
Arnalds. However, Viktor says it
was never supposed to sound like
a film score. “It was supposed to
be an attempt between two mu-
sicians to create something out
of bass, contrabass, and violin or
viola. And just the two of us play-
ing together, and exploring new
worlds with those instruments.”
Yair agrees that the work was
never supposed to be anything
other than a new perspective be-
tween two musicians and their
instruments. “The perspective
is capturing a distorted image
where close and far are blend-
ed, and resulting in a focus on
the hidden textural and spectral
qualities of those instruments.”
While the two spent a lot of
time experimenting with differ-
ent sounds, they hesitate to call
their work ‘experimental’. Vik-
tor's manager, Antonio Cárdenas,
doesn’t hesitate. “Experimental,
emotional, and intimate,” he de-
scribes it with a smile. “These
three words work well together,
with experimental placed last,”
Viktor says, laughing. “If it’s only
experimental, people get afraid of
the music.”
“It is a new perspective and ap-
proach to two very old and famil-
iar musical instruments,” Yair
finishes.
“An album was not
the plan, but
rather a very
happy accident.”
"An album was not the plan," Viktor says
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30.06.–
06.10.2019
William
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