Reykjavík Grapevine - Dec 2020, Page 12

María, Kjartan, Georg & Orri manning the stone harp
The original text—which
forms the basis of the lyrics to
Steindór’s hypnotic chanting—
tells the story of the end of the
world. The im-
ager y of the
poem, which
scholars sus-
pect to be miss-
ing its begin-
ning and end,
paints a story
of decline, in
which the world
is freezing over
from north to
south. And while the world freez-
es, the gods feast, oblivious to
their own doom.
“It was an apocalyptic warn-
ing,” says Hilmar. “Perhaps the
people of the time felt it in their
skins. Today, of course, Iceland
is involved in environmental is-
sues surrounding hydro-electric
power and the destruction of the
Highlands. We are being warned
again.”
A hibernating beast
‘Odin’s Raven Magic’ is much big-
ger than just a Sigur Rós album.
It’s a truly collaborative effort.
Steindór is a commanding vocal
presence, almost relegating Jónsi
to the sidelines as he leads the
listener through the eight stan-
zas of this ancient text, while the
steinharpa and the orchestra are
so dominant as to almost make
the band itself seem like backing
musicians.
“As an outsider, it was an in-
teresting project to take part in
because of the complexity of it,”
María says. “As well as the band
and all their instrumentation,
there is a sculptor that never per-
forms on stage, then the chanter
in a musical setting that he is not
used to, and glueing it all together
is an orchestra and a choir. So
part of the reason it went into hi-
bernation was because it was just
such a beast. Ev-
eryone had to step
out of their com-
fort zone.”
“The beauty of
this is that all the
people involved
don’t recognise it
as their own work.
It’s so collaborative
that it’s become
an independent
thing,” she continues. “The poem
is just timeless and it’s more rel-
evant than ever before, because
it explores the end of the world.
It’s been very interesting to actu-
ally look deeper into the poem—
I didn’t have the time to actually
look deeper into the poem at the
time because it was just mayhem
trying to cram it all together.”
The elephant in the
room
While the new release is a long-
awaited and welcome addition
to the band’s discography, it’s a
relic of an earlier Sigur Rós, and
in some ways,
the elephant is
still in the room.
They have only
met online to
make decisions
about things like
cover art and t-
shirts. “It’s not
l ike we came
together like a
football team
and decided to
release it,” Kjartan laughs. And,
as we speak, there’s no fixed plans
for the band’s future—no upcom-
ing releases, no new projects, and
no calendar. But then, perhaps
there never has been.
“When you look at some-
one’s career, you might start to
think about how something was
thought through and you might
think it’s all calculated,” María
says. “But I don’t think things
are calculated. You just react to
what’s happening. I’m in a band
that has changed members so
dramatically over the years that
nobody knows what it ‘means’. It’s
more like an umbrella or a musi-
cal force that just... continues.”
“No one’s counting members,”
Georg says. “People come and go.
It’s free-form. Through the years
we have approached each record
as a separate project, and they’ve
always been done differently—
not necessarily by sitting down
and discussing what we are go-
ing to do. Things change and you
create in a different way. People
change as well. Times change.
Your own attitude to life chang-
es.”
Weathering the storms
Sigur Rós were founded in 1994,
which, for this writer, means they
have been active for an entire
lifetime. In that
time, Icelandic
society has un-
dergone massive
tectonic shifts.
The band has seen
almost three of
the country’s six
presidents come
and go, survived
the rise and fall of
entire industries
and lived through
the country’s transformation
from a backwater in the North At-
lantic to a global tourism hub and
back again.
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“Every generation
has this feeling
of Iceland chang-
ing so fast, but
at the same time,
the core doesn’t
change.”
“It was an
apocalyptic
warning. Perhaps
the people of the
time felt it in their
skins.”
12The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 10— 2020