Time for the third and fourth interviews of the series.
First up is Benni Hemm Hemm who will once again cram as many people holding
brass as humanly possible onto an Airwaves stage. Their third album is now
available, and I'm sure it will be as great as the first two – although I
assume the highlight of their career was the song they did with that wonderful
evil genius cartoonist Hugleikur Dagsson (yes?) and after them the very very promising
Hjaltalin…
Hello Benni, where are you and what are you doing?
I’m in Edinburgh. I’m listening to music (FM Belfast at the
moment) and reading about a record label based in Fife, called Fence Records.
They look cool.
Who’s in the band?
That’s a good question. That’s me and a lot of other people.
It’s never the same group, which is fun.
Blog
readers have a short attention span, can you describe your music in 3 words?
Bissst. Exquisite. Bandarous.
Probably,
5 other bands will play Airwaves at the same time as you, so why should people
come and see your show?
Because we’ll have hundreds of people on and off stage. And
no one knows how this will be possible, which makes it exciting to see. Making
things close to impossible is essential to keep things alive on the stage.
What other bands will you try to see at the festival?
FM Belfast, Skakkamanage, Ólafur Arnalds, Retro Stefson,
Hjaltalín, Reykjavík!…and of course all the other Kimi Records bands, Megas,
Motion Boys…..and all he foreign bands that I have never heard of and will
blow me away.
Everyone
has an opinion, but how and why does the Icelandic music scene that seems to
produce such a large number of good bands?
The lack of business keeps the scene healthy.
Benni Hemm Hemm play Airwaves on Wednesday at 21:45 at
Tunglid and on Friday 21:30 at Nasa.
Hello Hjaltalin, where are you and what are you doing?
Hi IceBlah. I'm just sitting at home, answering your
questions and watching the Icelandic economical system collapse. Just another
basic manic Monday.
Who’s in the band?
A bunch load of people. Högni sings and plays guitar, Sigga
sings as well, Gummi plays the bass, Hjörtur the piano, Viktor the violin, Axel
the drums and then the wonderful Rebekka is our bassoon player. And who knows,
maybe will get some more people to join us on stage at Airwaves.
Blog
readers have a short attention span, can you describe your music in 3 words?
No, but someone described it as "beautiful eclectic
powerpop", but that's just one man's opinion. One reviewer even wrote that
Hjaltalín sounded like the Teletubbies if they might have decided to put a band
together.
Probably,
5 other bands will play Airwaves at the same time as you, so why should people
come and see your show?
Because they'll hopefully like what we play.
What other bands will you try to see at the festival?
Just as much as possible, hopefully all of them, but we
guess that's not an option.
Everyone
has an opinion, but how and why does the Icelandic music scene that seems to
produce such a large number of good bands?
Because when we're running naked in the nature
(just like in that Sigur Rós video) the elves bring us all these fantastic
tunes. So thank the elves.
Hjaltalin play the festival on Wednesday at 22:30 at Tunglid and on Friday at the Art Museum at 23:00.