the Family Tree

The artwork for Family Tree is by an Icelandic friend, a sculptor named Gabriela. Like me, she has four chambers in her which we call "roots," "beats," "strings" and "words." So I used this for the taxonomic structure of Family Tree… To bring together roots, beats, strings, and words, to unite all these opposing sytems, is to be a medium between disparate worlds trying to unite history, the present and the environment into a song on the radio, in a possible moment of utopia…

Roots

Where we come from, the ancient things in us - in my case, stubbornness and patriotism ; enthusiasm for Iceland, the culture and the natural physical environment ; old-woman melodies and indigenous punk rock ; my voice. Appears here in songs representing some of the biggest leaps and discoveries in my harmonic development from the age of fifteen until now…

Beats

Our craving for modern times - in my case, the desire to unite with the new and unknown, the alien and taboo by merging my voice with foreign electronic beats. With this experience, I could then try to develop a peculiarly “Icelandic“ electronic rhythm. Appears here as some of the first experiments I made around 1990 with English electronic beatmakers Graham Massey and Mark Bell…

Strings

Our struggle with education and all things academic—in my case, ten years of classical music training where I was force-fed German composers then spent the next fifteen battling them : if we were going to invent a new Icelandic modern musical language then where did Brahms and Beethoven come into it ? After all these years, string arrangements have enabled me to unite my musical universe with the academic one. Appears here as my collaborations with the Brodsky quartet in 1995…

Words

How we use words to tell stories about different emotional states—in my case, I always felt that I was first a music-maker using words as signposts for the music ; no mood is inferior, every emotion can be defended ; I can write songs in a spontaneous, flippant mood or I can focus on more complex structures that require a whole notebook of thoughts compressed into a few verses. Appears here as a selection of my lyrics over time…

Family Tree booklet, 2002