Playlist: Sigtryggur Berg Siggmarson
Sigtrygggur Berg Sigmarsson was born in Akureyri, Iceland in 1977. He studied sound art at the Fachochschule in Hannover, Germany from 1998 to 2003 and has been a long-time member of the band Stilluppsteypa. Much like TV Pow here in the States, Stillupstepya have traversed more musical styles than most others do in their entire catalogs, starting out as a noisy rock band and moving into digital abstraction, post-techno on the Mille Plateaux label, free improvisation, collage, and lots of (well… mostly) gray areas in between. On his own, Siggmarsson‘s recorded music tends toward calm minimalism and cinematic drones. A sly, somewhat self-depreciating sense of humor seems to unite this diverse body of work; one of my favorite examples is the review-neutralizing album title: This One Comes Highly Recommended. Nice one, eh?
We caught up with Sigtryggur just before he embarked on a short solo tour through Europe and asked him to tell us about one small aspect of his listening experience that shaped what he does today.
Intransitive: What were the three albums that changed the way you think about making music? Tell me what they were… how and when you heard them… and what the experience of them inspired or shifted in the way you compose, perform, record, or whatever aspect changed as a result.
Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson: Tricky questions these… hahaha… only three. Hmm… Kraftwerk comes first. At first, I didn’t hear a whole album, only a few tracks which would be playing on top of Icelandic TV commercials, the ones that would only show a picture with a voice over, the old ones, I think you know what I mean. Anyway, they would always play Kraftwerk on top, the instrumental tracks. i just remember the purity of the sound and the simplicity of it and having a ear worm after hearing that and was dying to hear more… I always thought that Kraftwerk was an Icelandic band. Back then i didn’t understand German and when asking my parents about the TV commercial music they would tell me it’s Kraftwerk and i always thought they meant “Kraftaverk”, which is Icelandic and means “(a) miracle”….
i would have to say the second would be Napalm Death “Scum”. When I listened to it first back in 1989, I immediately fell in love with what i was hearing, I had never heard anything like it before. Mind you this is before the internet, and in those times you couldn’t pick up such records from the records shops here in Iceland. I think they must’ve made a mistake while ordering in for the store where i bought it… in those days, I was listening to a lot of metal and punk, mostly Slayer, Crass, Dead Kennedys etc… in Iceland back then, there were no real “this or that” scene. What I’m trying to say is that you either liked pop music or metal/punk/extreme music etc. Anyway, when got back home and played the record i fell in love with the “speed”. It sounded perfectly normal to me. I guess i have ADHD or whatever they call it. At least that music soothed me (so does Merzbow) and “speed” makes me calm. So I must be hyper active or whatever they call it, I have never gone to doctors for a check up mind you. Needless to say, I formed a grindcore band only a few weeks after I had bought the record.
The third one would be Nurse With Wound “Sylvie and Babs”. I heard it in the early 90s, when Stilluppsteypa started doing more experimental stuff, using analog effects, farfisa organ and a tape machine. That album pushed us into a void that we are still stuck inside of.
Tags: ADHD, Hannover, Iceland, Kraftwerk, Merzbow, Napalm Death, Nurse With Wound, Scum, Sigtryggur Berg Siggmarson, Stillupstepya, Sylvie and Babs, TV Pow