Reykjavík Grapevine - maj 2021, Qupperneq 24

‘Mobile Home’ by
GusGus
The le!ends of Icelandic electro talk throu!h
their new album, 80s synth arpe!!ios and the
devil on roller skates
Words: John Pearson Photo: Art Bicnick
Track By Track
‘Mobile Home’ will be released on
May 28th across all platforms.
GusGus join forces with Vök vocal-
ist Margrét Rán on their new album
‘Mobile Home’, as well as hooking up
with former bandmates Siggi Kinski
and Stefán Árni for lyrical and vi-
sual collaborations. Grapevine met
GusGus mainstay Biggi Veira, fellow
founding member Daníel Ágúst and
Margrét Rán at the band’s Reykjavík
studio to talk us through the album.
Stay The Ride
Daníel: “Stay The Ride” is about
the disorientation of a person and
his connection to reality; creating
his virtual reality through a smart-
phone.
Biggi: This track has a massive
chorus featuring Dan, but we felt
that it needed an extra voice. Mar-
grét tried it and I thought, “Yes,
this is what’s needed to finish the
album; her just doing the final
touches.”
Higher, feat. Vök
Margrét: Biggi sent me the demo
and I was like “That's an odd one,
but really cool.” I was really into
watching ‘The Crown’ at the time,
so I linked the song to the whole
concept of majesty and power. The
characters were so powerful, in a
way, but in another way so power-
less and isolated from reality.
Daníel: And the concept of isola-
tion from reality comes up in more
lyrics on the album.
Biggi: Maybe what Margrét feels is
majestic is the Vangelis influence.
It’s a reggae-dub-techno Vangelis
track.
Simple Tuesday
Daníel: The guy in “Simple Tues-
day” is totally lost. He's not even
trying to be the best version of
himself. He's lost in procrastina-
tion and trying to decide when he's
going to be himself. When can he
stop being so lost and just get a
grip on his life?
Love Is Alone
Daníel: When working on new
tracks, you sometimes come up
with stupid lyrics like this, as
placeholders just to create a mel-
ody. T hat phrase kind of rang in
my head.
Margrét: And you sometimes cre-
ate gold by doing that.
Daníel: But in the final lyrics we
decided to keep this strange con-
cept of love being alone, because it
is sadder than sad to say that love
is alone.
Our World
Daníel: It’s about the frame that
society puts you in, which we then
just carry around because that's
how people want us to be. And
that's how we think we should be-
have for others.
Biggi: Or maybe it’s the frame that
you choose in context with the re-
ality you want to seek. You say “I
want to be like this,” and then you
have to fit into that frame.
Daníel: Yes. So it’s a self-made
frame, basically.
Original Heartbreak
Daníel: The broken heart of youth.
It’s about unrequited love and a
very fragile relationship between
people who are attracted to each
other, but shouldn’t be because
it’s…
Biggi: …socially illegal. It’s love
and shame. And then it’s discov-
ered, and the bomb blows up.
Daníel: And that’s when the origi-
nal heartbreak happens.
Silence
Daníel: This was one of the demos
that I really loved. That arpeggio
was just so fast, busy and hypno-
tizing that it pushed me to write
about silence. Because it was so
noisy, so busy, and so eager to grab
you, I used silence as a weapon
against the noise.
The Rink
Daníel: We share this fond memo-
ry from our teenage years—roller
skating in those rinks that had
been set up in town. We shared
that experience, and then we came
up with this idea of a struggle be-
tween good and evil in this sup-
posedly innocent recreational
world.
Biggi: Yeah, “The Rink” is a song
about a fight between good and
evil on roller skates.
Flush
Biggi: And the story is over. So
where do we go from here? Just
flush it down the toilet so it gets
washed away, and start again.
Daníel: Clear the mind and start
over.
Biggi: So basically that’s what
“Flush” is about. It’s just a spiral-
ling toilet flush.
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24The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 05— 2021
GusGus in their studio, which is unfortunately not a mobile home
Track By Track
“Maybe what’s majestic
is the Vangelis influence.
It’s a reggae-dub-techno
Vangelis track.”