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Home , Bedroom community, Ben Frost, Nico Muhly, Sam Amidon, Vespertine

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 ’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 ’s 1998 musician? the choice. There was no question that the film , and on her sub- VS: I started playing electric guitar studio was where I wanted to spend more sequent 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 . 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 , his own record around 16, I went into the studio for the that I work with in the studio. label. His first solo , 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 2 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Online supplement to Issues 17 & 18, 2009 studios of 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 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. This is a work- shop that I turned into a studio. It’s a big open room with a lot of light. The studio is basically built as a work- shop for myself, that’s the idea. But also we operate on a commercial level too. So it’s set up so that anyone can bring their session in here and do whatever they need to do with all my instruments and my equipment.

DG: And recently who has record- ed here? VS: On a day-to-day basis it’s me and , who’s on the Bedroom Com- munity label with me; we work here. My brother Mio runs the studio. We just had a band called Munich from . And Ben Frost is working on his second album for Bedroom Community. And I’m working on a film score for Photo: Donald Gislason an Icelandic film, a documentary called you have to, otherwise people are just go- and the label has released five albums. Draumalandið, or Dreamland, based on ing to get sick of you. It’s a community in the sense that we the book by Andri Snær Magnason. Those all participate in each others’ albums. I are the recent projects at the moment. DG: Well, my own theory is that it’s usually produce, mix, and more or less Then, I’ve just been working on a Sam a question of scale, that Iceland is small run the label. Then, Nico makes arrange- Amidon record, because he was staying enough to avoid the conditioning effects ments for everyone and plays and pro- here for Iceland Airwaves. So we used the of the big companies, while still being grams and so its very collaborative, which time to record much of his second album. large enough to give people important, is what I like. It’s probably going to be ready sometime resonant feedback to musicians on how very soon. they are doing. Is it, then, a question of DG: I came out to visit your studio Recently also we finished a Nico scale? If Iceland were bigger, do you because I want to get to know your la- Muhly album that was released this year. think that its music would be different? bel and the space in which you record. There’s so much that I’m probably forget- VS: Yeah. I think so. And I think that’s Could you tell us something about ting, like, half of it. [laughs] a good theory. Iceland is a good place to Greenhouse Studio? do things on a smaller scale and see if VS: Greenhouse is a studio that I DG: What are the challenges of they work. Because there are not going to started in 1997, and we’ve been in here running a recording studio? be many people who survive being in one in Breiðholt since 2000. It started re- VS: It’s complicated, actually, to op- band or being a solo artist in Iceland, not ally small, with borrowed equipment and erate it as a workshop, a personal space for very long. whatever I had collected. I started by get- that you live in, and also a commercial ting bands that I had been playing with to space. So it’s challenging to keep it the DG: You mentioned the lack of the come and record. way I want it just for myself, and then big labels. I’m interested in your own Music for the filmDancer in the Dark to open the doors for everyone else and label, Bedroom Community. Could was probably the first major project that I make it a comfortable and easy place for you tell me something about that and did at Greenhouse. I started working with them. But luckily I don’t have to run the your artists? Björk on that in 1998, and then I re-locat- studio on my own any more. I have other VS: It’s the label I formed in 2006. ed in 2000 when I had found this build- people working with me on that. It’s an Icelandic label, although I’m the ing. This is actually in quite an interesting only Icelandic artist on the label. We have street: the houses have big workshops and DG: And how did you select the three others on the label: , living spaces together in one building. artists who are on your label? who is a New York composer; Ben Frost, It’s a community that was started around VS: It really happened quite organi- an Australian composer living in Iceland 1980, I think, with artist workshops next cally. When I was working a lot out in and working with me a lot on different to the houses. New York I had started thinking seriously projects in my studio; and , Today, most of the artists have moved about starting the label because I kept a folk artist living in New York. Sam and out and a few of the houses have been coming across projects that I was really Nico are both originally from , turned into apartments, but there’s still a interested in working on. 4 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Online supplement to Issues 17 & 18, 2009 I had met Nico Muhly around that time and was really interested in work- ing on his music. To him the idea of even making a studio album didn’t exist, you know, because he’s from the world of classical where you write for a performance, or for the stage, or for a spe- cific group that is performing your work. He hadn’t really thought about the idea of making an album, but to me that was the obvious thing. I wanted people to hear his music on a record, properly recorded, and I thought I had some ideas that would be exciting to add to his music. At the same time, Ben Frost had been moving to Iceland from . We had been friends for a while and I really personality behind the music, because we engineer or programmer or producer. So, liked his music, and he was in a similar place ourselves somewhere in the world every time I had some free time, I wanted situation: he didn’t have a label. So it of electronic, new classical, experimental to get back into making the album, and just made sense with these three people – music. And folk, new folk, or whatever then I got sucked into another project. I me, Ben and Nico – to just create a label you call these things with Sam Amidon, left half-finished ideas somewhere on my around that. who is the latest artist to join the label. He hard drive for a while, and then I came And so that’s how the idea started. had been using a scrambled version of his back to them sometime later, so the songs And Speaks Volumes, Nico Muhly’s CD, name, “Samamidon,” put together as one developed over a few years. was the first one we put out. Then the la- word. So it’s now “Sam Amidon,” two And one of the reasons for the title, bel just kind of grew. I had no idea what I separate names. Ekvílibríum, is that I was kind of finding was doing, so I just had to find out what it the balance between working as a collab- is that you do when you put out an album DG: Given that you are the only orator with other people and putting more internationally, because we quickly got Icelander on your label, how has your time into my own music, figuring out international distribution. So then we had label been received in Iceland? how I could combine these things without to figure out how to promote the album, VS: People are confused, I think compromising one or the other. So that’s because nobody knows Nico and… well, (laughs). They don’t really understand it. one of the reasons I thought it would be that was in 2006. the perfect title for the album. DG: Because it’s directed interna- DG: All of the Bedroom Commu- tionally and not to the local Icelandic DG: What are your future plans? nity albums seem to be of solo artists. community? VS: I have an album that is coming Was that a conscious decision? VS: Maybe, yeah, that’s got some- out on the label in 2009 that features VS: Yeah, it was, actually, at the be- thing to do with it. I mean, we are clearly the Kronos Quartet and a Finnish group ginning. That was one of the things we an Icelandic label and we’ve been that called Klusters. And that kind of collabo- talked about as being important for the from day one. The music is created here, ration can exist as an extension of the la- identity of the label: being a home for we operate from here and this is kind of bel, but we’re not going to have all these solo composers or performers. But I don’t the place that connects us all when we people involved as an integral part of the think that’s going to be an eternal rule. So make music. label, you know. there might be a band on the label some- But I don’t expect people to necessar- time. But the problem is that bands are ily understand why an Icelandic label has DG: Is there an overall esthetic bands, and they only exist for so long. Australian and American artists on it. But that all of your artists share or that you They come and go. at the time when I was starting the label seek to promote with this label. At the beginning, we also made a I had been away a lot. I had almost spent VS: Yeah, it has to be kick-ass strong point of having everyone’s faces on at least half my time away from Iceland, great, everything we do (laughs), that’s the album covers, so that everyone’s iden- so I didn’t have many connections with the esthetic. tity is up front. This is one of the things Icelandic artists that I wanted to put on that electronic labels, especially, have the label, which has a much wider scope, You can hear the music of Bedroom been hiding in the last ten or fifteen years. maybe, than just limiting the label to Ice- Community’s recording artists at the la- You have all these white covers with a lit- landic artists. bel’s MySpace page: www.myspace.com/ tle tree on the front, and then someone’s DG: How long did it take you to bedroomcommunity, including excepts name but it’s not his actual name, it’s just do Ekvílibríum and what is that album from the albums Speaks Volumes and a made-up name. So you never know who about? Mothertongue by Nico Muhly, Theory the musician is, and you have no personal VS: It took me a long time to pro- of Machines by Ben Frost, All is Well by involvement with the music. duce, because I had been working on a Sam Amidon and Ekvílibríum by Valgeir We wanted to promote the person, the lot of other projects in studio, as hired Sigurðsson.