Reykjavík Grapevine - sep. 2021, Blaðsíða 24

'Delu#e' By
Boncyan
If only listenin# to son#s was always this easy
Words: Hannah Jane Cohen Photos: Joe Shutter
Info
‘Deluge’ by Boncyan will be released
September 17th. Find it on all
streaming platforms.
Boncyan—Iceland’s resident mature
boy band—is composed of Janus Ras-
mussen, Sakaris and Tom Hannay.
After a slew of fun releases, they are
finally dropping their first EP. We sat
down to hear it out—track by track.
Turn It All Around
Tom: “Turn It All Around” is about
the negative effect that social me-
dia can have on your life, and the
vicious cycle that you can fall into
when you spend too much time
comparing yourself to images of
lives (seemingly) better than yours.
Ultimately spending more and
more time with your head online,
neglecting to appreciate the here
and now—it’s a modern cliché, but
a good one.
Janus: Writing the song was swift
and effortless, and I feel it shows
how much fun we had making it.
If only making songs was always
this easy.
Tom: Agreed! Must have been
something in the water that day.
Writing music can often be hit and
miss, you have to show up and start
writing, knowing that what you’re
about to write will probably end up
in a ‘demo’ folder with some ran-
dom-ass working title like “Post
MaTome.”
Still, you’ve got to show up each day
and put the work in because there’s
always a slim chance that it might
actually be a decent song, and an
even slimmer chance that it might
be a great song.
Wait For It
Tom: ”Wait For It” is about the
feeling right before you make up
your mind to drop a truth bomb on
someone and give them a piece of
your mind.
Sakaris: We had a ton of fun doing
this completely unapologetic retro
'90s house track, with quite era-
authentic instrumentation. We
didn’t really know what to do with
the thing, until one of us proposed
that we call our good friend Gu!-
run (GDRN) and have her smack
some vocals over the top. Then
Tom arrived in Iceland so we put
him on background ad-lib diva du-
ties, and bam! Instant banger.
Deluge
Sakaris: We found this cheap liv-
ing room organ sound, which by
itself sounded quite comical. We
then proceeded to play some mel-
ancholy ballad chord progressions
on top of a super sparse beat, and it
turned from comical to beautiful.
Tom: This song is a great example
of how we each use our individual
strengths to work as a team, creat-
ing a song that’s greater than the
sum of its parts.
The decision to sing softly was
pretty much the first decision we
made. We wanted to write a slow
and sensitive song that would fit
nicely as an interlude to an other-
wise energetic live set. I’m telling
you now, singing softly is much
harder than singing with power!
The lyrics were centred around the
idea of ‘life happening,’ where life
is a deluge that can sweep you away
from someone you had no inten-
tion of being swept away from and
how sometimes, you just need to
hold your breath, let go and wait
for the swell to carry you to calmer
waters.
Fire
Tom: This song is more about try-
ing to capture a feeling rather than
having a clear narrative… pff nar-
rative, who needs one of those any-
way? It’s the feeling of being so sexy
that you’re on fire and the atomic
bomb of emotions that grips you
when you come face to face with
someone who is fire to you.
Sakaris: This was a simple jam,
based on some hefty beats and dis-
torted synths and 808s, but once
Tom ad-libbed some vocals on top
of it, it turned into a proper song.
We decided to just let go of conven-
tional pop-form and do whatever
felt right and interesting, ending
with that filthy solo in the end.
Tom: Making music is supposed to
be fun, we all got into this business
because, more than anything, we
love creating music.
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24The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 09— 2021
That damn pink vog from the volcano gets everywhere
Track By Track