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March 2, 2023
Embracing
The Void
Æ gir on finding balance and ‘accepting uncertainty’
Words: Josie Anne Gaitens Image: Art Bicnick
Ægir Sindri Bjarnason has just
released his seventh solo album,
accepting uncertainty — a five
track record of crushing industrial
noise and dark ambience. It’s a
brilliant, exhilarating creation,
albeit far from easy listening. But
it’s also not the only new thing
Ægir has had a hand in creating
recently. When we arrive at his
apartment on a freezing, January
afternoon, he opens the door to
us with a tiny infant curled peace-
fully on his chest.
Ægir and his partner, María-
Carmela (perhaps better known as
the artist MSEA), welcomed their
daughter into the world at the
very end of 2022, just two weeks
before accepting uncertainty.
“In these first few weeks we
just take turns. We try to make
sure we both get to go for a walk,”
Ægir says, smiling on beatifi-
cally at María-Carmela and child,
still in the haze of love and sleep
deprivation that all parents of
newborns know so well.
Parental demands
Ægir is no novice when it comes
to balancing the joys and pres-
sures of parenthood, while trying
to also live a creative life; his first
child is now eight years old. Ægir
admits learning how to fulfil
himself artistically at the same
time as caring for another human
was a steep learning curve.
“When she was very young, I
got kind of isolated from a lot of
my creative things because I had
to work and then her mom was
at school,” he explains. “We were
just also very young and newly
responsible for this other person,
while still figuring out how to
take care of, or be responsible, for
ourselves.”
“I wanted to do things that I
couldn’t do and didn’t have the
time to do,” says Ægir, echoing the
frustrations of many new parents.
“I tend to get kind of depressed
when I’m not creative, when I’m
not working on something,” he
continues. “I think that’s partly
why it was so freeing for me to
start making music by myself.”
Supporting act
Prior to embarking on his solo
music project, Ægir was predomi-
nantly known as a drummer, a
talent he has built a reputation for
since his early teens. “I’ve been
playing in bands since forever,” he
says. However, as much as Ægir
loves drumming and perform-
ing with other people, there were
aspects of this craft that he recog-
nises held him back.
“Being a drummer, I think I
never even entertained the idea
of making music by myself,” he
says. “I've always felt like I needed
to rely on other people for this
creative outlet because, you know,
the drummer is always kind of in
the back and is always supporting
a band of people.
“I've taken up my space in my
own way through drumming,”
he adds, finally. “But it's still not
really something I used to think
could stand on its own musically.”
Recording as
an entry point
Ægir’s first foray into produc-
ing his own music came through
teaching himself how to record
the bands he was playing in at the
time.
“I was never really completely
satisfied with the result when
working with other people and
it tended to take a long time,” he
says of his motivation to become
a sound engineer. “I had grown
interested in the recording
process and at some point just
decided that if I'm doing it myself,
then no one else is going to care
about it as much as I do.”
Ægir admits the process wasn’t
always easy. “It's tricky,” he says
“There's a lot of learning. I've
made records that I think could
have sounded better. And I've
made the records where I think I
managed to get them to sound the
way I wanted them to. And that's
just growing over time.”
Going electric
It was input from María-Carmela
that sparked the next step in
Ægir’s creative journey. “I had
Ableton [a music production soft-
ware] and I gave him access to it,”
she says. “And immediately he was
like, killing it.”
“In the beginning, I was mostly
interested in playing drums and
processing them to somehow find
more musicality in that, and like
looping and creating these weird
sounds and different textures
that are all still coming from the
drum kit,” Ægir describes. “But
after some time of that I got into
Ableton and started programming
beats and just doing more like
fully electronic production.”
A different energy
accepting uncertainty is the first
of Ægir’s album’s to feature María-
Carmela’s voice — although, as
he points out, “throughout my
creative process, she has always
had input.”
“I’ve been playing in her band
for a while,” Ægir says. “So we’ve
been making music together for
some time. But for this, I felt like
I had nothing to add to the song,
but wanted a different energy in
it. And I think it's probably the
first time in the process of this
project, where I felt like I needed
someone else on it.”
“You also heard me singing
in the shower,” María-Carmela
reminds him.
“The bathrooms have a shared
fan system,” Ægir explains,
smiling. “So I heard her singing
in the shower while I was in the
bathroom, through the fan. And I
thought, ‘wow, this is amazing! I
have to use this for something.’”
The couple talk warmly as
they recall the final recording
sessions just before the record was
finished. “We did a couple of really
long takes. She was eight months
pregnant at the time,” says Ægir.
María-Carmela jokingly
grimaces. “My ribs hurt!”
Learning to love the void
“I spent most of the last year kind
of like slowly working on this,
which is probably the longest I've
worked on a solo album,” says
Ægir of the album’s gestation
period.
However, like much of his
work, once complete, accepting
uncertainty was released with very
little fanfare.
“I’m not overly concerned these
days,” Ægir says of the process
of promoting his work. “I don't
really feel like putting too much
expectation on the release itself,
because that kind of inevitably
leads to disappointment. It's
tiring to be working super hard at
putting something out, trying to
make sure it gets heard by some-
one — and then a lot of the time,
it doesn't.”
I suggest that this must feel
like shouting into the void.
“So I've just kind of embraced
the void,” Ægir responds with a
grin, and María-Carmela laughs.
“You know, there's so much
music that I want to make,” he
goes on. “And I kind of always
have something in my head that I
am working on. So I'd rather just
finish the thing and get it out and
move on to the next thing.”
accepting uncertainty is available
for purchase on Bandcamp or to
stream on Spotify.
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