Efterklang: You Know You Want To

“It will be our first concert in Iceland. That’s enough accomplishment for us.”
Hi Efterklang! Tell us a little bit about yourself: who you are, what you do, why you do it. Remember: Hype is for PR departments, honesty is for musicians.
We are from Denmark and we play music. We do it because it is what we know how to do, and we have been making Efterklang music together for almost ten years now and I should add that we love doing this. We can’t stop.
Do you have anything special you want to accomplish by coming to Iceland? What?
It will be our first concert in Iceland. That’s enough accomplishment for us. We have an ambition to play a concert in every single European country and we are slowly getting there. We need to visit some countries in the Balkan area and also Greenland, Faroe Islands and Lithuania  and then our mission is complete (more or less)! We also hope to be able to deliver a good concert in Iceland and hopefully we will get a good crowd for it.
We won’t have you pin yourself down in a genre, but maybe you can tell us what musicians you hope your fans also like. What music inspires you?
We would hope they like many musicians in many different fields. Thats how we enjoy music. In a vast variety. However if you like Roy Orbison, Einstürzende Neubauten and Arvo Pärt then there is a good chance we would like to be friends with you…
And what would you want to tell our readers, to convince them to come to your show (remember: you are not in marketing, you are an artist)?
We love playing concerts and if you love live music you should consider attending our concert.
What got you making music in the first place? What kept you playing?
Our school teachers – it started for us in the public schools and a good friendship for now more than 25, 13 and 10 years has kept us together
What do you like these days? Anything we should know about?
I like ping pong playing. I just got this flexible net called a ROLLNET and with this you can turn any table into a ping pong table. Right now we are using it on our dinner table and it is a lot of fun!
Will you be selling those cool Efterklang G-strings during Airwaves?
All 5.000 sold out in six minutes, so no. Sorry.
Do you feel that you have any special kinship with Icelanders? What do you think of our shared, colonial past, if anything?
We have a special kinship with amiina. Does that count? When Edda and Hildur lived in Copenhagen some years ago they played with us live and on recordings. Later on, we released a vinyl single for them on our Rumraket label and we consider them our good friends.
I don’t really think much about the colonial past that Denmark and Iceland share. However if some Dane suggested that we should colonise Iceland in this present time, I would suggest that that person had his genitals cut off for being stupid
Make a five track playlist for your planeride over. Tell us why each track is there. Your scenario: you’re just about to land, and you want to mentally prepare yourself for whatever you think is going to meet you.
I’m not good at this kind of stuff – I mostly listen to albums from start to finish.
On my most recent flight, I listened to Arthur Russells ‘Calling out of Context’ which doesn’t really qualify as an album, but it was super nice. I forgot all about lack of sleep and rough landings and missing luggage. I recommend that album for flying. Actually, it’s good for everything.
Efterklang are playing tonight, Thursday 21:40 at Reykjavík Art Museum.