An eerily desolate Icelandic landscape and effortlessly graceful choreography—today Sigurlaug (Silla) Thorarensen a.k.a. sillus releases the perfect visual accompaniment to “dapply,” a haunting lo-fi track from her 2018 EP.
“This video came about because the song was chosen to be in the Amazon Prime series ‘HANNA’ which releases on July 3rd,” Silla explains. “It’s very surprising, but it’s great”.
Childhood friend Ugla Hauksdóttir is directing several of the series’ episodes and approached Silla about creating a music video for the ‘dapply’. The perfect opportunity to shoot the video presented itself when Ugla had to come home from LA due to the Covid circumstances.
The video was shot on a single sunny, but characteristically windy, day in Ásbrú, a small town in southern Iceland. Silla was immediately struck with the location’s desolate beauty. “It’s a very unique place. You rarely see it here in Iceland. It’s like a deserted town. You have all these houses with different coloured roofs so it’s aesthetically pleasing even though its so deserted and weird and it really fits the song,” she says.
“The idea for the video is that sillus is alone in the world,” Silla explains. In fact, the video was in part inspired by the children’s book ‘Palli var einn í heiminum’ which centres around a little boy in a town where all the residents have mysteriously disappeared.
However, Silla was far from alone in the filming of the video—she had a talented team working with her on the project, including cinematographer Markus Englmair, videographer Berglind Erna Tryggvadóttir and choreographic assistant Aðalheiður Halldórsdóttir. “It was a really good team, I’m really happy,” Silla says.
What’s next?
There are currently no plans to release any more videos for sillus’ 2018 EP because the musician is focusing on her next release, which is currently being mixed and masted by Hermigervill.
Silla is also balancing studying for a sound engineering programme at Stúdío Sýrland with yet another musical project, BSÍ. The DIY riot grrrl band will soon release its first LP and will be performing next Friday as part of grassroots music collective, post-dreifing’s summer takeover at IÐNÓ.
Rest assured, Silla has found time amidst her exhausting schedule to celebrate her latest achievement. “We celebrated on Friday with a screening at MENGI—I played an experimental set with Hermigervill and we had the amazing Hexía De Mix dj-ing and Sean Patrick O’Brien and Natka Klimowicz provided some visual magic. We were dancing and partying non-stop.” Tired from the weekend, Silla plans to take things a little easier this evening, marking the video’s release by sharing a drink with the project’s crew.
Check out sillus here.
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