Iceland review - 2007, Qupperneq 69

ICELAND REVIEW 75
our gigs,” Orri remembers. “She had these hair extensions and she said the
hair was from dead people. I think I went and hid in a closet or some thing after
that!”
Maybe that experience explains their desire to pay attention to things
closer to home. Sigur Rós’s music fits with the Icelandic land scape. Hear
one of their tunes over a shot of some wilderness and it makes perfect
sense, much more so than watching four normal looking blokes playing it.
Only Kjarri has a certain star quality to him, but that could be because he’s
currently sporting a raffish moustache.
“I think my moustache looks like the music we play!” Kjarri laughs, taking
over the hotseat from Orri. “The space in the music does fit with the scenery
in Iceland but I think it would fit with the mountains of New Zealand, too! Any­
where like that. It does definitely fit with scenery but it could be any scenery.”
Do you think where you are has a big impact on the music you make?
“No, I don’t think so,” he answers more thoughtfully. “I used to think that
but now I think it’s more about mind­space than the surrounding space. But
then again it is very important to us to come back to Iceland where there is
lots of room. The mind­space is big here too.”
One of the major themes in Heima is the change that’s taking place in Iceland.
This is best illustrated by the band’s performance at the Kára hnjúkar dam, where
they made one final protest against the flooding of a valley meant to provide
electricity for an aluminum factory. Their ambi guity surrounding such “progress” is
summed up by their realization that the vibra phone they use is made of aluminum.
When he talks about the changes tak ing place, Kjarri is part enthusiastic, part
wistful.
“Iceland is such a young country,” he says. “The industrial revolution happe­
ned a hundred years after the rest of Europe. People are prepared to take their
chances and just go for it because everything is new and exciting. At the
beginning of the 20th century, Iceland was one of the poorest countries in
Europe. Then the industrial revolution hit the shores after the Second World War
and since then it’s been grow ing so fast. There’s kind of an arro gant drive in the
Icelandic people today!”
Do you think the old spirit of Iceland is being lost at all?
“There’s always an upside and a downside,” he says. “It’s interesting to
see the energy of these Reykjavík businessmen buying up old chains in
Britain.”
And football clubs...
“Yes, and football clubs! If you look back 50 years, you couldn’t have
imagined that happening and it’s interesting to see that energy coming from
this small country. But it’s very scary as well. These people who just want to
make some fast money and not give a shit about any thing. They can do a
lot of damage. There’s always a flipside of the coin.”
The protest camp performance sees them trying to compromise with environ­
mental concerns by playing entirely unplugged. It’s an exper ience that
Kjarri says will have a major influence on their next album.
“We did the acoustic performance and that was like a slap in the face
for us,” he says. “We’d never done an acoustic performance before and we
didn’t believe that it was possible. That was very inspiring. The next record
will probably be much more stripped down.”
After the effort and expense of Heima and its companion album Hvarf/
Heima, that’s not surprising. Although they’re all clearly proud of the film they also
seem a little ambivalent about the fact that director Dean Dubois managed to
persuade them to give interviews as part of the documentary. Nevertheless
Kjarri is clear that, as always, they’ve managed to keep something back.
Do you think the film shows you as you really are? I ask him.
“Yes, part of us at least,” he answers.
Which part has it left out?
“Ah,” he grins. “The secret part!”