Reykjavík Grapevine - 25.10.2019, Blaðsíða 12

12 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 19— 2019
If the early aughts in the Icelandic music
scene was defined by lo-fi indie, peak-
ing at around the time of the financial
crisis of 2008, Grísalappalísa undoubt-
edly represents the sound of post-
crash Iceland: loud, chaotic, bounding
with untameable energy. From their
inception in 2012, their creativity was
so great that, by the band’s own admis-
sion, they had enough material for a
second album by the time the first one,
‘Ali,’ was released.
However, their latest album, ‘T!nda
rásin,’ will be their last. Grísalappalísa
is breaking up.
In many ways, that’s evident in the
album itself, and the roughly five years
it took to make. “This record is basi-
cally about how hard it is to make this
record,” saxophonist Tumi Árnason
explains.
Let’s go back to the beginning.
THE
DREAM
LINE-UP
Grísalappalísa frontman and lyricist
Gunnar Ragnarsson got his start in the
highly successful Jakobínarína, which
won the Músíktilraunir song contest in
2005. While that band would dissipate
a few years later, Gunnar hadn’t given
up on being a musician; it was only a
question of with whom he would form
his next band. Becoming friends with
Baldur Baldursson proved to be the
catalyst.
“We bonded a lot, with similar
obsessions and habits,” Gunnar recalls
of his early friendship with Baldur,
who would become his co-singer and
-lyricist. “We were interested in musi-
cians like Megas, Bob Dylan and Leon-
ard Cohen. Songwriters with heavy
literary influences. I hadn't been doing
anything in music for at least three
years, and I wanted some avenue for
self-expression. I had a dream linger-
ing, and Baldur was playing with
writing lyrics for songs in Icelandic.
We spent a lot of time together in his
apartment in those years.”
So Gunnar considered the people in
his life, forming in his mind what he
calls his “dream lineup”.
“This included Sigur"ur [Möller
Sívertsen], our drummer who also
makes the videos for Grísalappalísa,
and of course was with me in Jako-
bínarína,” he says. “I also thought of
Bergur [Thomas Anderson] on bass
and Albert [Finnbogason], who had
been together in bands I really liked
and who I was friends with. Rúnar [Örn
Jóhönnu Marinósson] joined the band
later. They were all the same age as me
and we were all in bands competing in
Músíktilraunir in 2005.”
Despite this meticulous planning,
fate would introduce Gunnar to Tumi
Árnason, the saxophonist and occa-
sional other instrumentalist since
Grísalappalísa’s beginning.
THE QUIET
TYPE
Gunnar met Tumi when they were
working together at Bíó Paradís in
2011. Where Gunnar is practically
crackling with energy, hardly able to
sit still as we chat, Tumi provides an
interesting contrast; more reserved
and composed, with a quiet demean-
our.
“I just came home from backpack-
ing trip across Russia, Mongolia, China
and Vietnam for the better part of a
year,” Tumi says. “It was really fun.”
Turning to Gunnar, Tumi continues, “I
remember when you started the band,
it was so interesting because while I
knew Albert and Bergur, but Sigur"ur,
I didn't really know them at all. I met
them at the first rehearsal.”
As a kid, Tumi listened a lot to jazz,
and was in his school’s band. When
he started secondary school, he also
started attending a high-end music
school, perhaps biting off more than
he could chew.
“I had no idea what I was doing. I
kind of freaked out over it and quit,”
Tumi says. “Then I just started playing
in rock bands instead. I did that for a lot
of years, from around 16 years old, then
decided to finish my proper education
a couple of years ago. Albert and I were
in The Heavy Experience together, and
knew each other from that, and Bergur
and I were in Just Another Snake Cult.“
PREJUDICE
AGAINST
SAXO-
PHONES
The choice to have a saxophonist,
Gunnar says, stems from a number of
reasons.
“I had heard Heavy Experience, and
I really liked that band,” Gunnar says.
“And of course, Baldur and I were really
into this band Morphine. It was some-
thing really basic like this. I've become
very conscious of prejudices and
misconceptions about the saxophone
from being in this band, because in a
lot of the writing about the band, it's
always like such a novelty. ‘Oh and they
have a saxophone player! And it isn't
awful!’”
“I think it's because of the 80s prev-
alence of saxophone solos,” Tumi adds.
“I heard so many intense statements
about saxophones from the indie
scene.”
“Maybe the idea is that you have the
80s Kenny G sound, and the other idea
people have is like John Coltrane and
Albert Ayler,” Gunnar says.
“It's also very popular in shorter
reviews that we've been getting over
the years—and not just for this band—
where it's like, if there's a saxophone
present, you can put this ‘jazz’ label
on it,” Tumi says. “‘With elements of
jazz.’ When there's nothing jazz about
Grísalappalísa.”
THAT FIRST
REHEARSAL
Now that Gunnar had established
his dream lineup, the next step was
convincing his draft picks to actually
come together and play. This he did
by creating a Facebook group, adding
only the musicians he wanted. Soon,
everyone was on board to have their
first rehearsal. By all accounts, it was a
major success.
“At the first rehearsal we wrote
‘Kraut í G,’ the first song off of [debut
album] ‘Ali,’” Gunnar recalls. “That
was very cool. Everyone was a bit shy,
thinking ‘what are we doing here?’ And
I think it was Bergur who said that he'd
been listening to a lot of krautrock.
[Sigur"ur] started the motorik beat.
Baldur brought like 20 A4 pages of
lyrics. At this stage I was supposed to
be the singer and Baldur was just going
to write lyrics, but we hadn't formed
an idea about that. I had a bit of stage
fright, froze and didn't know what to
do. But Baldur started frantically yell-
ing into the mic, launching into this
existential rant that became the song.
That was the first rehearsal.”
When all was said and done, they
knew they had started something
great.
“We were pretty excited about it
pretty quickly,” Tumi says. “I'd never
done anything like this, and I really
liked the line-up. It got off to a good
start right away.”
“There was a period of a few months
where we wrote the seven songs that
formed ‘Ali,’” Gunnar says. “We were
writing almost one song each practice.
We wrote the first four, and then the
last two or three; just flying in a burst
Off The Rails With
Grísalappalísa: The
iconic Icelandic band
bids adieu to their
current form