Reykjavík Grapevine - des. 2020, Blaðsíða 13

“Iceland has moved at such a
speed since the two world wars
because it was a very poor country
at the turn of the century,” says
Kjartan. “Every-
thing changes very
fast these days and
has been for the last
eighty years.”
“Except the poli-
ticians,” Georg in-
terjects.
Kjartan contin-
ues: “So it’s excit-
ing, but at the same
time it’s reckless.”
“When we were
filming [the tour
movie] ‘Heima,’
I remember we
came home after
touring just be-
fore the [2008 fi-
nancial crash] and we were like,
‘What’s happening here?!’ Every-
one wanted to be a banker and we
felt like we didn’t know our own
country,” explains María. “Every
generation has this feeling of Ice-
land changing so fast, but at the
same time, the
core doesn’t
change.”
“We like things
t o h a p p e n
f a s t , s o m e -
times without
thought, and
it’s exciting in
ways but it’s al-
ways the same
fe e l i n g t h a t
you get stuck
w i t h w h e n
things aren’t
done carefully.
Which could be
said about this
album. It never
would’ve been done if people had
actually thought about what they
were doing.”
Like the Edda, Sigur Rós’ music
has always spoken to the endur-
ing elements of life on this island,
channelling its geophony, the
wind-battering rhythms echoing
from the past into today.
“With Sigur Rós, you never
know what will happen. Things
just kinda fall into our laps and
we don’t overthink it,” Georg says.
“Something could happen tomor-
row or in ten years. We just never
know.”
‘Odin’s Raven Magic’ is a mes-
sage bottled in a distant past, a re-
minder of the things that endure:
old friends, old poems, old ways.
Like the steinharpa, which is said
to never go out of tune, the band’s
spontaneity and the spirit of cre-
ativity that drove them to write
ORM, also endures. Perhaps we
needed reminding. Perhaps they
did too.
JORGENSENKITCHEN.IS
LAUGAVEGUR 120, 105 REYKJAVÍK
+354 595 8565
Weekend
brunch
[11:30 - 16:00 ]
A dish full of
tasty brunch
+ mimosa
Only
2990 kr.
“The beauty of
this is that all the
people involved
don’t recognise
it as their own
work. It’s so col-
laborative that
it’s become an
independent
thing.”
María Huld Markan, composer
13The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10— 2020