Ten years ago, an elfin-faced artist burst onto the international music scene, anything but quietly, as she sung It’s Oh So Quiet, her fingers pressed to her lips as she commanded listeners to ‘SSHHH’. It was, of course, Björk. The Iceland-born singer was already well-known abroad on the indie scene following a five-year stint with The Sugarcubes, but the success of her first solo album, Debut, catapulted her to international stardom and fuelled a world-wide fascination with the culture that had given rise to this peculiar musician, who snubbed her button-nose at mainstream pop.
Iceland, and in particular, the capital of Reykjavik, has since increased in popularity over the past decade as a holiday destination and is famed for its thriving club scene. This is the environment electronic musician and software designer, Thor Magnusson, grew up in. But the perception that the music of Björk and The Sugarcubes was the norm in Iceland, is far from the truth, he says. Magnusson remembers about 15 years ago, when he was a member of a punk band, experimental music didn’t have the kind of recognition it does now. The Sugarcubes and Björk changed all that, he reckons.
‘We had this scene in Iceland at the time [pre-Sugarcubes] which was quite ‘pop’ – really lousy music,’ he claims. ‘My opinion is, that interesting music was never released and never played on the radio.’ A burgeoning era of punk music paved the way for a strong interest in the underground scene, but the commercial record companies weren’t interested, Magnusson says, adding that the media wasn’t helpful, either.
‘When Sugarcubes and Björk really made it internationally, somehow, the underground became mainstream and the mainstream became country hillbilly music!’
‘The situation inversed: the underground became acknowledged as more important than the mainstream. This was a quite obvious result, I think, as Icelandic pop does not have a strong grounding internationally.’
‘It was a very interesting time,’ he muses. ‘The underground became the norm, somehow,’ he repeats, as if trying to fathom the possibility that this could happen. Certainly, such an upheaval of mainstream and underground music is unprecedented anywhere else in the world.
In Magnusson’s view, all things kooky and quirky were unleashed from the northern country because Björk had set the standard, or paved the way if you like, for the wider acceptance of Icelandic artists’ unique stamp on electronic music.
‘It kind of [gave] freedom to people to be much more expressive and crazy in their ideas, there was nothing holding them back like before.’
Although he left Iceland ten years ago, and has been living in various European countries since, (he is currently based in Denmark) Magnusson has recently had the pleasure of programming a festival of experimental music featuring the best of the eclectic genre from his home country.
Eight groups will perform alongside electronic and experimental music outfits from the US, UK, Austria and Portugal, as part of the second Ultrasound Festival in Huddersfield this month.
The festival emerged as the most popular component of an initiative begun by the Digital Research Unit (DRU), established in October 2002 at The Media Centre in the north of England.
Magnusson and his collaborators on the ixi-software project, a company that designs software for use by electronic musicians, were the first artists-in-residence at the DRU. During the residency, the idea came about between Magnusson and the DRU directors, to create a theme for every annual festival. That’s how the Icelandic Partition was born – designed to feature a ‘partition’ of musicians from Iceland, but not at the expense of showcasing the latest talent from across the rest of Europe.
‘Ultrasound is very much related to the music created on computers,’ Magnusson acknowledges. ‘I think having … these Icelandic musicians, it’s going to give it a nice character this year,’ he adds.
Last year’s inaugural festival involved a lot of people ‘staring into computer screens’ – playing music from laptops – Magnusson recalls. But this year’s featured artists tend to brandish guitars and other real instruments, which are then combined with electronic music. Magnusson believes this distinction is characteristic of the main differences between electronic music in the UK and Iceland.
‘I think it is quite natural for people in Iceland to mix electronics with traditional instruments,’ says Magnusson, attributing this trend to the fact that Iceland is a small country and therefore people from different music scenes are more likely to know each other and collaborate. In the UK, he believes, the electronic music scene tends to be more defined between the laptop jams, the DJs and the VJs.
But despite this, he sees a lot of crossover between the two countries, with both looking to each other’s scene for inspiration.
‘I think it’s the country we [Iceland] have the most connection with musically,’ he notes.
The line-up for this year’s Ultrasound Festival features a number of musicians who push the elements of creativity in their music. Among the avant-garde flavours are Reykjavik favourites the Kitchen Motors Band. Emerging around 1999, Kitchen Motors also doubles as an entrepreneurial organisation described as a record label, a think tank, and an art organisation. Two of its three performers, Hilmar Jensson and Johann Johannsson, will also perform solo.
Displaying the imagination that has come to characterise Icelandic artists, Kippi Kaninus weaves electronica with beats drawn from contact mikes placed in obscure objects like an apple, which is bitten into, or a pencil sharpener, with the mike recording the sound as the sharpener grinds the lead. Meanwhile, 26-year-old Mugison, who is also on the bill, has been known to incorporate the sounds of a kettle boiling and coffee-making into his songs, to lend a personal touch.
Joining them will be duo Darri Lorenzen and Thorunn Björnsdóttir; Stilluppsteypa; Vindva Mei; and Ólöf Helga Arnalds.
Magnusson admits that the programming process was relatively easy given he knows most of the musicians. In a country as small as Iceland, everybody knows everybody in the music scene, he says. The only thing he was worried about, having been away for ten years, was that he would miss that important someone or group out.
The Ultrasound Festival takes place in Huddersfield November 27-29. Visit the website for full details: www.ultrasound.ws
Related Article
03.09.03 Arts Hub Feature on the Digital Research Unit: Digital art and sound resonates in the north
Related Websites
www.ixi-software.net
