dady—formerly Dadykewl—has been on a three-year hiatus since his last effort ‘Klámstjarna’. But thankfully, Iceland’s resident lovestruck, sullen, smooth af singer has returned with ‘Hvítir Hrafnar’, an album about growing up, falling in love, getting wise, and getting sad. We sat down with dady to hear about the album track by track.
Hvítir Hrafnar
This song wasn’t intended for the album, as nobody seemed to like it except me, so I shamefully stored it and admired it in solitude. But during a session with the legendary mixer Oddur Kristjánsson (Sgandall), I sneaked it in. He immediately saw the ugly beauty of it and gave me a lecture that I should always follow my heart, pay taxes and never listen to songs in mp3.
Hleyp
I’m in my 20s and slowly growing into legit adulthood—business meetings, buying milk, saying things like “best regards”, drinking responsibly. “Hleyp” is about me being scared shitless of the beast of capitalism, and how it will chew me to pieces until my core ambitions are to get a promotion, while the creative and optimistic side of me gets tortured in a vault hidden under the thought of buying stocks in Icelandair. Oh and Sdóri fucking kills it!
Þráðlaus
“Þráðlaus” is about self-hatred and how it can become something you unintentionally surround yourself with. By writing the song I came to a self-realisation that I had to constructively work on self love. As RuPaul said: “If you don’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love somebody else?”
Brotna
Did you seriously think I was not going to blow off some distorted steam on this album? Well most of you probably didn’t even consider it, but if you did, oh boy, you were wrong.
Í frjálsu falli
People told me this song could be longer, but why say just something when you’ve said it all? That’s when you leave it to the talented KARÍTAS. If you’re not touched by the end of this song, go see a doctor.
Kastaðir Mér Út
And we continue in… *drumroll* …constant agony and depression! If there’s one thing to take from this, it’s that you should align your values and happiness to the person you’re becoming. Change is inevitable, and so is the fact that our new constitution is being held back by people with all of our nations’ money and there is little we can do about it.
Ódauðleg
I’m not going to talk a lot about this song because it’s hard.
dady. Photo by Berglaug Petra.
Alcatraz
Have you ever had a crush? Well I have, and it was embarrassing and awkward. In the end, my love isn’t beautiful, it’s messy with badly constructed sentences (unless I have time to put it into a song).
Ég Dey
Mastering engineer Garðar S. Jónsson (Almyrkvi) created a spot-on genre for this song called “Þunglyndis Diskó” (“Depressive Disco”). It’s an upbeat track about the heart-tearing vision of seeing your loved one cry because you’re an asshole.
Groundhog Day
We may seem happy in Iceland and the country is beautiful, but you try living with the lights off 70% of the year in a cold, windy, dark room that only has Hagkaup as the main excursion. So on a loving note, I want to say to my homies out there feeling like life can be a bit overwhelming and tough: You can always reach out to me for a chat. I’ve been there. However, I am not a professional and I know a lot of people find Píeta Samtökin really helpful to chat with. You can also check out 39.is for more information.
Syndir Vel
No sub-bass. No bullshit.
Anyway, I do hope you enjoy the album, although that is not a requirement. Art should always be made for yourself to like with the intention to inspire people that are better at it than you, so they can make even better art.
Check out dady on Facebook.
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