OFFERING A RARE INSIGHT INTO
ONE OF ELECTRONIC MUSICS MOST
SECRETIVE AND EXPERIMENTAL NAMES, WAVESHAPER TV RELEASE AN IN-DEPTH
VIDEO FEATURE WITH ICELANDIC ARTIST BJARKI.
FILMED ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF REYKJAVIK,
BJARKI DISCUSSES AND UNVEILS THE
FIELD RECORDING TECHNIQUES BEHIND
HIS FORTHCOMING ALBUM ‘HAPPY EARTHDAY’
BJARKI
WAVESHAPER TV EPISODE II
Bjarki is the musical alias of Icelandic techno/electronic producer Bjarki R Sigurdarson. Founder of the bbbbbb recors label, he is best known as one of the key artists on Nina Kravizтрип (Trip) imprint; scoring a monster techno anthem right out of the gate, with “I Wanna Go Bang” from his debut 12-inch. Since then, Bjarki has developed a more diverse and experimental sound.
Waveshaper TV recently caught up with Bjarki on the outskirts of Reykjavik, to capture the process behind his music making. Joining him and a friend sound hunting in Icelandic nature, they follow them back to the famous Sýrland Studio, to see how those field recordings are processed and incorporated into his new “Happy Earthday” LP, forthcoming on !K7 Records.
Waveshaper TV is a new YouTube channel dedicated to high-quality interview and feature videos, with a diverse array of electronic music producers, inventors, manufacturers, and visionaries. With the same team behind the hugely successful modular synth documentary I Dream Of Wires — seen widely on Netflix — they have forthcoming electronic music documentaries Electronic Voyager (about Bob Moog) and Subotnick (about Morton Subotnick). Passionate about electronic music, they have made it their mission to document its story, from iconic figures to lesser-known yet compelling outsiders. What unites all subjects is an obsession with the sound of music made with machines.
‘Happy Earthday’ will be released via !K7 Records on 15th February 2019.
An expressive electronic album with the kind of positive, stirring resolve that leaves you feeling utterly comforted, Bjarki’s new album ‘Happy Earthday’ is influenced by his home country Iceland as well as environmental issues.
Having released bodies of work on трип and his own label bbbbbb, Bjarki views ‘Happy Earthday’ as his proper debut album; he feels it’s a more coherent and conceptual body of work that finds him offering up music he never thought he would release. The album contains very personal material written over the last decade during fragile moments of introspection.
Says Bjarki on the album:
“You can consider this album as a window into my head and even my soul. It reflects my thoughts at the time I made this music. For me it is a bit odd, sharing it like this with the world. As a very private person I am not used to open my door so completely, it can be a little scary for me. What if … I tend to think, expecting all kinds of everything.
Releasing this album is also a kind of a farewell to music I made in a certain period in my life. It’s like I’m saying farewell to a grown-up child which is now ready to leave.
When facing the world, the music undergoes many changes from my point of view. It becomes global, ceased to be obeyed by my thoughts. Now it’s yours, the folks that listens, thinks, speculates about it, consumes and develops a private opinion. Not one, or two, but many, even thousands. And your opinion is equally as ‘right’ as mine, or maybe more.
That’s how art is. When published, the understanding or opinion is even more of the consumers than the artist. He has lost his control over it and for me that is the scary part. Again, what if …
My music is under a heave influence from my inheritance as an Icelander, my upbringing, my family, surroundings and of course the music and artists I have listened to all my life. That’s how things are.
Maybe you can feel the melancholy of my life, the nature overall. Volcanos and the lava flowing down the slopes, the frightening noise of the ocean beating the land, the strong wind in the mountain passes and a glimpse of the first ray of the rising sun over the glacier. Now that is the dawn of a new day.”
Bjarki also announces a host of new dates in the new year, including shows in France, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Australia, Austria, Netherlands and UK.
24 Nov – FR Nancy @ L’ostra Club
30 Nov – FR Brest @ Le Vauban
1 Dec – IT Polo Fieristico @ International Talent 20th Anniversary
8 Dec – PL Wroclaw @ Ciało
14 Dec – FR Paris @ La Machine
31 Dec – DE Berlin @ Supermarkt
4 Jan – NL Amsterdam @ De School
1 Feb – CH Geneva @ Le Zoo
9 Feb – ES Barcelona @ Nitsa
15 Feb – AU Victoria @ Babylon Festival
16 Feb – AU Sydney @ Hordern Pavilion
23 Feb – NL Maastricht @ Muziekgieterij
2 Mar – AT Graz @ Elevate Festival
23 Mar – DE Berlin @ Trauma Bar und Kino
30 Mar – CH Delemont @ Yes To All festival
21-22 Jun- PL Katowice @ Tauron Nowa Muzyka
Tracklist
A1 Thodn med skit a master
A2 This 5321
B1 Galopinn muninn
B2 Fimmtudagur 16-2
Bjarki leads a pack of international artists who in the past few years have taken a hauntological approach to re-moulding the scents of breakbeat, rave, jungle, trance and IDM into sounds that are entirely their own. Already this year he began his own label bbbbbb with artistic sparring partner Johnny Chrome Silver, he released under new alias Cucumb45, performed his new live show at clubs and festivals from Mutek ES and Peacock to Printworks, and recently announced a US tour for July.
TRP015 finds Bjarki in typical, monstrous, floor slaying form with four trance leaning tracks from his archive that have proven an inspiration for Nina Kraviz’s DJ sets over the past year. Bjarki takes key aspects of trance and takes it for a head-spin into the unknown – mangled percussion, disorienting voices, unravelling textural layers, sub aquatic bass frequencies and intense melodies. All make for a uniquely irreverent take on a much maligned genre most of us secretly adore.
‘’When Nina compiles an EP for you, there’s always a purpose for it in her head, you know she’s up to something and it’s really inspiring to follow as she goes.” – Bjarki
