Words by

Jóhannes Bjarkason

Photo by

Supplied

Smells And Sounds Make Up Fischersund’s Sounds Of Summer

A soundtrack to a night out is the concept behind Sindri Már Sigfússon and Kjartan Holm’s recent album Sounds of Summer. Produced in collaboration with perfumery Fischersund, who manufactured a scent in tangent with the album, the soundtrack evokes the dreamy feeling of a typical night out during the Icelandic summer. Sindri and Kjartan told us all about their latest offering.

Leitandi Augu

The beat in this song is mainly made with a sample of a zippo lighter and field recordings from Venice Beach. I found some driftwood that I used to beat up some rocks with and you can hear the waves in the background. The vocals are samples from old songs of mine and a recording I did with Inga and Lilja for a song they were working on circa 2011 that was never released. — Sindri

I Feel So Alive

This was the first song I did out of old stems from Sindri. I think Loreen had just won Eurovision for the second time and I wanted to make a very low-budget version of a Loreen/Eurovision song. Just fun og ekkert vesen. — Kjartan

Minnisleysi

This song is centered around the vocal sample and the kalimba riff and just seeing how long I could make different variations on it without it becoming repetitive. The vocals are from an old unreleased song of mine. — Sindri

breathe

I wanted to try to make a very simple and tribal song that I imagined being played very late at some huge warehouse rave. If someone could play this at some late-night rave and send me a video of it, I could watch it in the morning when I wake up. — Sindri

Ljósin kveikt

Originally this was a cue in a film I was working on. Then somehow it just turned into a laid-back electro song. There was something about the overall mood that just felt more techno-y rather than yet another sad piano cue for a film. — Kjartan

Ringulreið

Ringulreið (as the name suggests) is just utter chaos. It had one goal of including all the singers in the Fischer family (Sindri, Jónsi, Lilja, Inga and Rósa). I started by sampling them from old recordings, jammed for 15 minutes and then recorded a bunch of modular synths over it. This was supposed to be a 15-minute long opus but I was forced to cut it down to 5 minutes. — Kjartan

Ofbirta

Like “Ljósin kveikt,” this was a cue for a film. I liked the repetitive 5/4 motif which was originally composed for strings. If I recall correctly this was a really dramatic and epic moment in the film and worked very well. Then for some reason, I jokingly recorded the MIDI through my modular synths and showed it to my girlfriend who then took ownership of it and said it had to be on the album. So I had to write a new cue for that particular film. — Kjartan

Von

I made this in a hotel room in Tenerife. Probably the most unhinged song on the album. I think maybe I’d been drinking a bit of grappa with my dad before I made this. — Sindri

Fuglasöngur á leiðinni heim

The story arc of the album is supposed to soundtrack a night out. This song was written with the idea in mind of people walking home from the bar with the sun still out and birds singing. — Sindri

Missed Call

Just a bunch of strings, field recordings and a Moog DFAM chaos. Sindri and I did a bunch of field recordings in the highlands a couple of years ago for a project and this is the result of that trip. — Kjartan