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Lögberg-Heimskringla • Online supplement to Issues 17 & 18, 2009 • 1 pHOtO cOurtesy dOnaLd gIsLasOn Valgeir Sigurðsson, left, with his interlocutor, Donald Gislason. Valgeir’s principal instrument, the mixing board, can be seen in the background. A chat with Valgeir Sigurðsson Behind the board with one of Iceland’s premiere music producers Donald Gislason original studio musicians of our time, as really. I was more comfortable in the well as his thoughts on the often-asked studio than on the stage to begin with, omposer and sound engineer Val- question: what makes Icelandic music so so I guess I was more interested in col- geir Sigurðsson is perhaps best unique? laboration than in just playing one kind of Cknown for his studio collabora- music. I was playing in a few bands, and tions with Björk, with whom he worked on DG: Valgeir, how did you become a touring a little bit and then I had to make the soundtrack for Lars von Trier’s 1998 musician? the choice. There was no question that the film Dancer in the Dark, and on her sub- VS: I started playing electric guitar studio was where I wanted to spend more sequent albums Vespertine and Medúlla. when I was 9 and found a local teacher time, bringing in different collaborators His Greenhouse Studio in the Breiðholt to teach me rock. I was into punk, New and working as an engineer, producer and suburb of Reykjavík is considered the best Wave and that kind of stuff, and then I composer. And it’s only recently that I’m in the country, and is where he records the became interested in classical guitar so I starting again to perform, both with my heterogeneous group of artists who make studied that from the age of 14 or so. At own music and with a few of the people up Bedroom Community, his own record around 16, I went into the studio for the that I work with in the studio. label. His first solo album, Ekvílibríum, first time and I haven’t really left it since. was released in 2007. DG: I’ve noticed that your mu- In this interview, recorded in October DG: So you have had a career as sic seems to have its roots in dance 2008 at Kaffebarinn in central Reykjavík a performer, as a sound engineer, and rhythms but there is also a much purer during the 2008 Iceland Airwaves music as a composer. Which do you identify kind of esthetic at work, an interest in festival, we get a look into the creative with most? sound colour reminiscent of musique process one of the most talented and VS: I just see it as being a musician, concrète from the experimental music 2 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Online supplement to Issues 17 & 18, 2009 studios of France in the 1950s. Do you like to play with pure sound, without a sense of social occasion? “... I like combining sounds to make new layered sounds, like VS: Well, the stuff that I write, I take it pretty soon into the computer and start prepared piano combined with harp and something percussive to messing around in there on my own, be- fore I start bringing anyone else into the make one unison sound. It becomes something that you recognize mix, and before I make arrangements but you’re not sure if it’s exactly what you’re hearing, and then it for, say, other acoustic instruments that I don’t play myself. And that’s what I am might morph into something else two minutes later.” really excited about and was exploring on Ekvílibríum, my first solo album. And - Valgeir Sigurðsson the musique concrète reference is good, in the sense that I use a kind of similar approach for the beat, sometimes, assem- thing else two minutes later. You’re lis- used to hearing. I think in my own music bling material from random places, and tening to the same melody but they sound I bring together the acoustic and the elec- incorporating it into the piece of music. pretty different. That’s one thing that I tronic. And the acoustic, for me, is usually I don’t really care where the material had a lot of fun with on the album, and I more composed, rather than improvised. comes from, whether it’s a purely elec- really enjoy when playing live. I give the It’s like a classical arrangement. I dunno, tronic sound or an acoustic source. I think musicians instructions to play something maybe I’m a control freak (laughs). I kind of blur the lines there sometimes that they didn’t expect that their instru- in my music. But one thing that I realized ment could be doing, and that’s fun. DG: Now I’m going to ask you the when I started performing the music – be- question that all foreigners ask every cause I had never played any of this music DG: Do you compose in the ab- Icelandic musician. What is it with Ice- live before I put it on the record – was that stract, without a computer or a musical land? Is there something in the water the material that I had created for the CD instrument with you? here? Why are Icelandic musicians so was sort of … interchangeable. You can VS: Most of my music starts at an versatile, so well-trained? Why do they replace anything with anything, really, instrument – most often the piano, some- play in several bands at once? Why is and that’s what I enjoy doing most when times the guitar - to establish the basic their sound so unique? What’s with I’m performing it live. I try to make it dif- idea, the basic structure. Sometimes I you guys? ferent, and not just replicate what it’s like play around with sounds that kind of trig- VS: I think it’s about time that a mu- on the CD. ger something, then I use that as a kind of sicologist like yourself wrote a study on bed to layer something on top of. this. Because this is the question that we DG: In what sense is the material all get. I have a theory about why Iceland interchangeable? Can each layer of DG: What are the qualities of a hasn’t been producing a lot of mainstream sound be taken out and replaced by an- good piece, for you? And a good re- artists. I think that one of the reasons is other? cording? Is it the refinement, the place- that we don’t have the record industry, the VS: Yes, that’s what I’ve been work- ment in space, the transformation of traditional music industry with big record ing with a lot, changing the instrumenta- the sound? companies that develop bands and expect tion quite drastically, or remove things VS: Well, I think that first of all the them to fit them into a certain marketing completely, but aiming to arrive at the piece of music needs to be already worth profile, pushing them this way or the oth- same emotional content or the same ef- something, before you start thinking about er looking for a trend. So things tend to fect with a completely different line-up of enhancing it, or making the sound part of happen more organically here. You don’t instruments. The musical material stays it interesting and fun. I collect sounds that really have that big-industry “scene” here the same, the notes and the beats stay the I like and that kind of becomes the piece, … yet. And it’s probably not going to same, but they’re just played by different in a kind of musique concrète way. That happen because Iceland is not big enough instruments. becomes a beat, or that becomes a theme. to be interesting for those major record How I approach it varies a lot, but gener- companies. DG: So is changing instrumenta- ally I look for detail in the sound. That’s But actually, I think it’s an interest- tion the main structuring element in something that I instinctively do. ing time to be in music because of all your music, is that how the music de- that. There’s so much changing, and it’s velops? DG: What kind of detail attracts one of the great things about being here VS: That’s sometimes the case, yeah. your ear? is that you can experiment and try out a And I like combining sounds to make new VS: Sometimes it can be a slightly un- lot of different things. And the reason that layered sounds, like prepared piano com- pleasant detail, like the bow on the string, people play in five bands is that otherwise bined with harp and something percussive you know, rather than just the sound that they would be playing the same music for to make one unison sound. It becomes has gone out into the acoustic space and the same people every time you go out to something that you recognize but you’re reverbed around the room. So it can be the play… (laughs). So people tend to be in- not sure if it’s exactly what you’re hear- scratchy noise on the string, that kind of terested in and open to more styles, more ing, and then it might morph into some- thing that, in classical music, you’re not influences. I guess that might be because Lögberg-Heimskringla • Online supplement to Issues 17 & 18, 2009 • 3 few. There’s a sculptor back behind this house and there’s a sculpture garden at the other end of the street, so some of the older guys are still here.

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