Space Jam: Halldór Eldjárn Mixes Music & Technology

Halldór Eldjárn is a composer, drummer and computer programmer that has been active in Reykjavík’s music scene for the past decade. He is best known for his work with local electro pop mainstays Sykur and recently for building robotic instruments and taking part in projects that link music and technology in an interactive and creative way.

His musical skills developed at an early age. “My grandmother taught me to play the piano when I was six and my brothers introduced me to all kinds of instruments and music,” he explains. “One of them gave me a cassette recorder, which I used for ‘experimental’ recordings like my album ‘Bird-Teabag’ when I was seven years old.”

Digital + analogue

You might say Halldór camps out between two worlds: the digital and the analogue. “Most of my tracks have live drums and some strings, but the core is definitely electronic,” he says. “I love using digital methods in the analogue world, like building a robot that plays an acoustic instrument and then trying to make a digital sound feel acoustic.”

“I want to make music that gets people inspired, encouraged and excited for something new, like love or beauty!”

Halldór believes it’s quite common to link music strongly to human emotions. “I have very strong feelings when it comes to music and art so when I hear a beautiful song, I hear it with my heart and my whole body. I want to make music that gets people inspired, encouraged and excited for something new, like love or beauty.”

Expecting to fly

Halldór’s agenda is filled to the brim these days. “I just had a baby last April which is incredible. It changes the way you see the world,” he says. He now feels ready to release his debut solo album which he has been working on for over two years. “It’ll be half generative ambient music called ‘Poco Apollo’ and half progressive electronic songs performed by me and my robots,” he explains. “There is also some stuff in the works that I can’t talk about yet. I’m so excited!”

Follow Halldór at soundcloud.com/h-dor and hdor.is. A new single will be released on Sept. 28th and Halldór will perform his new material live at Mengi the following night. An album is in the works.