Reykjavík Grapevine - 25.10.2019, Síða 13

of creative joy. We wrote ‘Hver er ég?,’
‘Skrítin birta,’ and ‘Lóan er komin’—
the most fun songs on ‘Ali.’ The mood
was just fun, because we were getting
to know each other, having coffee and
joking and chatting about music.”
“It's always been the most fun group
I've ever worked with, right from the
start,” Tumi emphasises. “It's an amaz-
ing dynamic, whether in rehearsals or
performing live.”
THE
CREATIVE
EXPLOSION
‘Ali,’ was widely well received, and took
the band by storm.
“For me it was like an explosion
in my life,” Gunnar says. “It's what
I wanted and where I thought I was
supposed to be: up on the stage, people
admiring me, and telling me how great
I was. You get addicted to the vali-
dation of other people. It happened
quite rapidly that people were very
passionate and singing all the lyrics.
The release show at [the now defunct]
Faktor! was crazy. It was a packed
room, very sweaty and drunk people
with a guy in the front trying to hand
me a spliff. A lot of young guys in the
front with existential drunk angst. Not
the only kind of people, but definitely a
type at our shows.”
“Maybe I just hadn't thought that
much about it, but ‘Ali’ was so well
received and there was so much energy
and fun at the time,” Tumi says. “It
was a different kind of vibe from my
previous groups. It was just this free-
dom, because we were all very loose,
playing these long songs that could go
anywhere and be anything. We were
making all this music so fast and it was
happening so easily. We were already
well ahead of having material for the
second album by the time we released
the first one.”
Their initial creative output was
indeed remarkable, and the group
released ‘Ali,’ a 7” of covers of legend-
ary Icelandic singer-songwriter Megas,
and their second album, ‘Rökrétt fram-
hald,’ all within a 12 month period. By
his own admission, Gunnar says this
explosion of material gave them all
quite the confidence boost.
“We were very expressive in inter-
views, like, 'What's the deal with all
these bands who release just one album
in 4 years? We just did two albums in
two years and we're just going to keep
on doing it!’” Gunnar recalls.
“I think we were pretty cocky, and
just taking the piss,” Tumi says. “But
then we did a live album a year after
that, and a very non-serious plan
where we were like 'We're gonna break
up, and then we're gonna come back
together with a new line-up and do five
more albums.' It was a five-year plan.”
AND
THEN, LIFE
HAPPENED
As is often the case with even success-
ful musicians, other facets of life began
to put a strain on the band; domestic
life, sobriety, and the need for more
stable finances all played a part. In the
interim, Bergur had moved to Holland
and Sigur"ur to Bosnia. All of these
factors complicated the making of a
new album, and the process would end
up stretching out over five years.
“From 2016 until now, the band
wasn't really operating as a day-to-day
band, playing regular gigs and such,”
Gunnar says. “We'd just meet and play
a few times a year. People have changed
where they've been living, with some
people overseas.”
“Me, Albert and Rúnar were renting
this garage behind Byko in Kópavogur
and writing the sketches for songs,”
Tumi says. “We were gathering a crazy
pile of instrumental demos, where
we were all switching around playing
different instruments, so it's super-
sloppy, with part of the group totally
absent. Bergur was sending some
garage band demos from the Nether-
lands, which became two songs on the
album.”
“We had these vague song struc-
tures that were piling up in a folder,”
Tumi continues “We were thinking
of making a double CD; two and a
half hours of music or something. We
finished this enormous amount of
instrumental music and it switched
around—instead of adapting existing
lyrics to the songs that were being born
on the spot, we suddenly had all these
recorded songs and no lyrics.”
“It might have also been because
we didn't have a deadline, like for a gig
that we were playing,” Gunnar adds.
“This was a factor. But also Baldur and
I had big anxiety and procrastination
issues and a creativity block. We were
always discussing ideas, and then had
the demos to listen to, and then had
the finished recordings of the demos
to listen, but still we didn't have any
finished lyrics. I don't know how many
hours and days and months it was, just
listening to the material and going
back and forth. I think at some point I
told Baldur I don’t think I can carry on
if we don’t finish this album. We are
very proud of this album, but it was a
very arduous and long process.”
“This record is basically about how
hard it is to make this record,” Tumi
says.
THE LOST
CHANNEL
Their new album, ‘T!nda rásin’ (‘The
Lost Channel’), is out now, and even
the name of the album stems from the
creative process.
“It was a joke about Baldur having a
guitar, and a cable that isn't connected
to anything, or muted,” Tumi says.
“That it would be funny to release an
album just from that channel.”
“So this very banal joke becomes the
metaphor for our whole life,” Gunnar
says. “It's an album about isolating
yourself, and your ideas being worn
out and having driven you nowhere
really. About not being able to face your
problems.”
Gunnar says that for this new
album, Grísalappalísa “wanted to be
more autobiographical, to be more
vulnerable.”
“We were struggling to understand
each other, asking 'Why isn't this
happening?'” he recalls. “We had to
address our relationships with each
other and be very honest. There's a
very stark contrast between the first
two albums and this one. There was no
need for introspection back then; we
were just being young and not giving a
fuck and being beautiful.”
“I kind of feel like this whole journey
was like this train that gathers speed
and then totally goes off the tracks and
mutates into something else,” Tumi says.
“And we're just finding that out now.”
‘T!nda rásin’ is indeed an eclec-
tic mix. It includes a country track
and a de-tuned synthesizer marching
band track. Even the Wintris scandal
plays a role, as one track was tenta-
tively called “Sigur"ur Ingi,” but is now
called “Taugaáfall í Bónus” (“Nervous
breakdown in Bónus”). No, there is no
connection.
“It's very different from the other
two albums,” Gunnar says. “It's also a
bit different having the other members
more involved with the lyrics and the
singing. I also think the guys dealt us
a tough hand. Our music has always
been very schizophrenic in nature,
varying in musical styles and genres.
But in writing ‘T!nda rásin’ it got even
more extreme, almost as if there were
no limitations. It has always been the
lyrics that tie it together and let it make
sense in a unified way. This brings us
also to the joke-y nature of the band—
let’s do a country song, or atonal guitar
piece and see what those jokers in the
front do. Baldur actually gravitates to
these more ridiculous songs—so we
had them all finished first. But we had
a harder time finishing the songs you
might have thought were a little more
traditional in the rock band sense—
trying to perfect every line, second
guessing everything.”
WHEN THE
PARTY’S
OVER
While the band is rightfully very proud
of ‘T!nda rásin,’ it proved the final nail
in the coffin for their current form.
They will be playing at I"nó on Novem-
ber 8th as a part of Iceland Airwaves,
and they intend to perform the entirety
of ‘T!nda rásin’ early next year, but,
ultimately, Grísalappalísa are breaking
up.
“The band is quitting,” Gunnar tells
us. “This is the end for the band. So
these [‘T!nda rásin’] shows we were
talking about in February and March
will be the last shows. We'll play the
album in its entirety, then we’ll play
another full set of the golden oldies
It stems from everyone having differ-
ent things going on in their lives, and
the process over the years of making
the third album. We hadn't been an
active band for three or four years,
and this album has kind of brought us
to the brink in a collaborative sense
and creatively. We are all on very good
terms; we're almost like family. But
as seven people together as this band
we've just come to this now, and have
had conversations like, at this point we
can't go on as Grísalappalísa.”
“I think it's very sad for us, but also
kind of bittersweet,” Tumi adds. “We
were joking on the way here that this
was a kind of Sixth Sense plot twist to
the interview.”
The different members of the band
will continue working together in
other capacities, whether in music or
even film. Tumi even has designs on
making a Christmas album. All the
same, it’s hard to let it sink in that this
distinctly Icelandic band is dissolving,
even if there is little doubt that the
individual artists will not end their
creative output any time soon.
“I guess that's the whole thing about
‘T!nda rásin’; discovering things about
yourself, what you've been doing over
the last years,” Gunnar says. “Being
relieved and proud of the work you've
done, but it's also of course a natural
sadness of things changing. End of an
era, I guess you could say.”
13 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 19— 2019
“It's an album
about isolating
yourself, and
your ideas being
worn out and
having driven you
nowhere really.
About not being
able to face your
problems.”
“I've become
very conscious
of prejudices
and misconcep-
tions about the
saxophone from
being in this
band.”
Words:
Andie Fontaine
Photo:
Hör!ur Sveinsson