Orri Pall Dyrason
The Beauty of Iceland; The Difficulty of Its Language
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It sounds as if you’re having a long day.
“Long day?” he offers in chopped English. “Sorry?”
You sound busy.
“Ah,” he registers. “No.”
The conversation continues this way indefinitely. The distraction of Dyrason’s overwhelming Icelandic accent, however, is enough to divert anyone away from a conversational stalemate and into the vocal chords of his icy motherland. Dyrason talks about Iceland like a long-lost lover. Populated by just over 250,000 people, Iceland is about the size of the state of Virginia -- which has a population of about seven million. The men of Sigur Ros -- Jon “Jonsi” Por Birgisson on vocals and guitar, Gerog Holm on bass, Kjartan “Kjarri” Sveinsson on keyboards and Dyrason -- make their home in the country’s capital of Reykjavik.
Sigur Ros (or, “Victory Rose”) originally took their name from Birgisson’s newborn sister in 1994, and by 1997 the band put out its debut, Von (“Hope”) to much ado in Iceland. The band’s second album, Agaetis Byrjun (“A Good Beginning”) was released in 1999 in Iceland and by August 2000 Fatcat Records caught on to the buzz and released it worldwide. In the waning months of 1999, Sigur Ros had not played one gig outside of Iceland. Less than one year later, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke was citing them as a “major influence.”
Sigur Ros comes from the school of voice as instrument, eliciting the most pretentious aspects of shoegaze and post-rock simplicity with Birgisson’s whale-like moans. Lyrics are present in the band’s tunes, but they are nonsensical. Birgisson sings in a made-up language that he calls Hopelandic: a melodic mess of Icelandic, English and gibberish that’s used more as instrumental accompaniment and less as lyrical statements. Ten-minute statements.
And then there's the group's new album, its first under a recent deal with MCA. This latest release features neither an album or song titles. Instead, it is graced simply with two parentheses, only hinting at the mysterious music that lurks within.
NATN:How does Sigur Ros feel about being so in demand these days?
Orri Pall Dyrason: That’s really nice. Our album took a long time because we wanted to do it as live as we could, you know? We were playing all together. The atmosphere was so beautiful. We have a swimming pool in our studio in Iceland and we recorded everything there and we recorded everything together. I mean, our studio was built out of an old pool. It took forever to get the right feeling of the songs because we had been playing them for two or three years, some of them, in concert. But it worked out really well and we were really happy.
We’re tired of them, some of the songs, because some are three years old and we spent, in the studio, maybe more time on some songs than others and they got really old. We don’t play them anymore. We’re playing one new song and some songs off our other albums. All sorts of stuff. So yeah, it’s also interesting to us.
NATN:Compare this album to your last.
OPD: This album is not as produced as the previous ones. It doesn’t have the big string arrangements or choirs. It’s more just the instruments that we play.
NATN:And a swimming pool.
OPD: (Laughs.) And a swimming pool, yeah. It was for the sound and the area, the atmosphere. The area is really good, it’s an old factory area 15 minutes outside of Reykjavík. It’s got horses and ducks and a pond.
NATN:Tell me about Iceland.
OPD: There is so much space. It’s a pretty big country compared to how few people live there because most of it is uninhabitable. In the middle of Iceland it is really cold so all the people live right at the sea.
NATN:You sound like you miss it.
OPD: I miss my home and my friends and my daughter.
NATN:How does the band write material?
OPD: We just get together and start playing. It just happens.
NATN:And everything that comes out is long so far?
OPD: I don’t know why [no short songs have come out.] That’s really weird. [A short song] might happen. It just takes us a long time to say what we want to say. It’s not like we just make songs just to make long songs. People think that, but it’s not like that. That doesn’t matter [what they think.]
NATN:What is your personality as a band?
OPD: I think we’re shy. I think we are individually and as a whole. But it’s alright. We just close our eyes on stage. I don’t get to be in the back anymore. Our setup was changed because we got the string players in the back. I like playing the drums because it takes much more effort to play guitar or something.
NATN:I hear you have some famous fans.
OPD: Lars Ulrich sent us a letter once. You know, the drummer in Metallica. He came to our show in San Francisco and then sent us a letter. We have it up on our "wall of shame" in our studio. We have Tom Cruise. A picture with him and us. And a wonderful picture of Courtney Love and [lead singer] Jonsi [Birgisson]. That’s a good one. We laugh at that one all the time.
CALEY COOK |