A Sonic Adventure: Mary Lattimore Leads The Line At Extreme Chill 2024

Extreme Chill is an annual festival whose roots extend to coil around a certain set of underground sounds and vibes. Its broad remit includes expansive ambient soundscapes, cosmic drones, avant-garde composition and the wild edges of experimental electronica.

The event has evolved over its 15 years from one-night-only concerts in the Westfjords, to weekenders in Berlin and Vík, to its current multi-venue downtown Reykjavík format. “It started as an electronic music festival,” says Pan Thorarensen, one of the festival’s founders. “But it’s getting more eclectic. Right now we just call it an experimental music festival. It can be everything, basically.”

Art Bicnick/The Reykjavík Grapevine

International ambiance

Extreme Chill has become part of a community of like-minded events. “We all have meetings, and try to share a bit of workflow,” says Pan. “There’s Intonal in Malmö, Insomnia in Tromsø, CTM in Berlin and Norbergfestival in Norberg, Sweden. It seems like the scene is getting bigger. More people are listening to this type of music than 10 years ago.”

This year, the festival is a week-long event, with nightly performances from Iceland-based and international artists. Pan reels off the acts in the programme, fizzing with anticipation. “We’ll have Alessandro Cortini, who’s a legend in this game. He’ll use modular experimental synthesisers, I think,” he says. “FUJI||||||||||TA will be in Europe for the first time. He’s bringing all his homemade instruments from Japan. And we’ll have Mary Lattimore. She’s one of my favourites — it’ll be really beautiful to see her at Fríkirkjan.”

Silver Ladders by Mary Lattimore

Making life interesting

Mary is an L.A.-based harpist whose melodious, mesmerising music has become something of a phenomenon in recent years. She first came to Iceland in the early ‘00s to visit fellow harp player Katie Buckley. “I had never been to Iceland before and it felt like a very exotic place that I would never get to go to ever again,” she says. “But little did I know that I would end up going there… kind of a lot.”

“Music is a series of choices and when you add in someone else’s personality, it’s just bound to make something cool.”

Her connection to Iceland grew organically. “Julianna Barwick is a close friend of mine, and she had recorded with Alex Somers and toured with Sigur Rós,” Mary explains. “She introduced me to Alex, and Jónsi and his family. And then I played at the festival that Sigur Ros put together in 2018 [Norður og Niður].”

Mary’s 2018 long player Hundreds of Days got a sister album of remixes by Icelandic artists like Sin Fang, Kjartan Holm and Jónsi. Her catalogue is studded with collaborative releases, underlining her enthusiasm for mixing up her sound. “I love recording solo,” she says. “But you want to make your life as interesting as possible, and to make your music as interesting as possible, to keep up the curiosity. Music is a series of choices and when you add in someone else’s choices and see how they combine with your own — it’s just bound to make something cool, y’know?”

*Harp emoji*

Mary started her harp career early — her mother plays, too — and went on to study classical harp at university. But she contends that there’s more to the instrument than tradition. “Harp can get typecast, but I meet a lot of different kinds of harpists. Classical harpists, harpists who have never read a note and play by ear, harpists who make their own harps. Experimental harpists who listened to Joanna Newsom and felt inspired to play and sing. I think you can take this instrument to such a personal place.”

So there’s an international harp underground? ”Oh, you don’t even know,” she laughs. “My gosh, the message boards, the magazines — it’s a world. We were slightly involved with the proposal for the harp emoji, which got accepted. And so there’s going to be a harp emoji. We’re all very excited about it.” She grins, barely concealing her glee. “The emoji is coming.”

As beautiful as possible

Something that all touring harpists have in common is dealing with the instrument’s lack of portability. Mary often ends up playing on instruments provided by the venues in which she’s booked, which is always a roll of the dice. “If I fly into a show, sometimes I play on a harp that I’ve never met before,” she says. “It’s kind of fun because you never know how it’s going to be. Sometimes it’s like, ‘wow, I get to play on this Salzedo model that I wouldn’t ever be able to afford.’”

The flipside is occasionally playing on a rental harp that hasn’t been kept in peak condition. “Those shows are more like, ‘okay, even though you’re a bad instrument, I’m gonna figure you out how to make you sound as beautiful as possible,'” says Mary. “You have to discover its character on the spot, at the sound check. And it’s a little sonic adventure that you’re on together for this moment in time. Then you leave it behind — but it’s always part of the memory of the show.”

Extreme Chill Festival happens Sept. 2 to 8. Mary plays on Sept. 8 at Fríkirkjan. Get tickets and further info at extremechill.org.