No Words: An Interview With Instrumental Rockers symfaux

symfaux explain their enigmatic nomenclature, recording habits, and creative drive

“I think the lack of vocals just gives everything else more space, and gives more of a focus to everything that’s going on in the other parts. And there’s a lot,” says Ægir Sindri Bjarnason, sipping a coffee beside bandmates Sturla Sigurðarson and Vigfús Þór Eiríksson. Together, the three are symfaux: an eccentric rock trio coming off their sophomore album release mowerpic.

symfaux is purely instrumental, with Sturla and Vigfús on guitar alongside Ægir on drums. This strikes some as incomplete, Ægir explains. “We’ve turned down quite a few offers of bass players and vocalists,” he says (Vigfús reacts to this with a “Really?”). “I also had this with my other band; people were always offering to play bass. They see this thing and they’re like, ‘there’s something missing,’ because that’s what they’re used to seeing. But that’s just how it’s supposed to be.”

The three have long been friends and members of the same scene, but came together amidst a Norðanpaunk where Ægir and Vigfús unexpectedly supported Sturla in his project Bucking Fastards. They quickly realised they could make something of their own, and banded together; so far, symfaux has released two albums: carmonk in 2024 and, last month, mowerpic.

Both releases are delirious and noisy, with tracks ebbing between droning and raucousness. Their sophomore mowerpic is lengthy compared to the tight 14-minute carmonk; four of mowerpic’s nine tracks clear the seven-minute mark.

The album’s cover is a photo of Ægir, taken by Sturla, as he peers into an art piece by a friend of the band, Stirnir Kjartansson. Below the photo are three lines of mirrored text, which I learn is taken from a short story written by Vigfús (which I will leave to you to mirror and read for yourself).

“I heard from people that they hate it because it’s hard on the eyes,” admits Vigfús. “I guess the album is a bit hard on the ears as well,” jokes Sturla, and Ægir adds, “I think we just maybe like everything slightly abstracted.”

A day at the pool

mowerpic was recorded in Sundlaugin — Sigur Rós’s studio haunt — over the course of one day. Ægir notes Sundlaugin was “significantly more space than we’re used to having.” Sturla adds to this, sharing, “We had room to breathe — or like [David] Lynch would say, ‘room to dream.’”
“It’s just music for us, for music’s sake. We’re not playing a game, and we’re not trying to get anywhere.”

Despite the size of Sundlaugin, the group preferred to record without any walls between them, setting up to record as if they were rehearsing. They prefer to be close to each other, and to not use headphones. “I think people are often overly concerned with bleed,” Ægir notes, drawing from his experience as a producer, “and we are not. And I think just letting things bleed can just make everything work together.” symfaux also rejects overdubs, which creates the group’s distinctly raw sound. As Ægir puts it: “We’re just trying to capture what a few people playing together sounds and feels like. We’re just three guys playing together, and that’s what this is and what it should be.”

The symphony

“What’s in a name?” Sturla wonders aloud when I ask about the band’s — whose own band name is a phonetic permutation of “Sinfó,” the shorthand for “Sinfóníuhljómsveit Íslands” (Iceland Symphony Orchestra) — befuddling names for tracks and albums. Their two album titles are the confusingly named carmonk and mowerpic; Ægir teases they “are all just anagrams” before getting cut off by Sturla, who says, “Oh wait wait, we’re revealing this?!” Ægir clarifies, “I’m not saying what they’re made from.”

Equivalently, the group’s songs add further curiosity: “good times for slim pickings,” “-” and “i guess i feel like elvis.” “The songs and the titles just come separately,” explains Vigfús. They tell a story of finding the Wikipedia page for a vertical ship — an open ocean research platform that can turn on its side — and from there, Sturla says, “we think about that, and then we’re like ‘hey, we have this new song, why don’t we just call it vertical ship?’” He concludes, “It’s fun to title something that doesn’t have any lyrics.”

Close and honest

The group’s live performances mirror their recording tendencies. “I feel like when we played at Hátíðni [this summer], immediately when I came there, I noticed how large the stage was. And I was like, ‘No, that’s not gonna work.’ So we just invited the audience up on the stage,” explains Sturla. “I’ve stopped facing the audience,” chimes in Vigfús. “It’s nice to have a tight concert, everything is cramped. It’s kind of similar to some punk concerts or hardcore, where it’s about unity, it’s like — we’re not different from the crowd,” Sturla says.
“[Our music] is accessible to anyone and everyone in the spaces where it does exist, and that just gives it more focus there.”

symfaux is defined by only doing this how they want to — choosing how they want to sound, name things, record, and perform — as opposed to following any status quo. This comes from their intentions with the project, as Ægir explains: “It’s just music for us, for music’s sake. We’re not playing a game, and we’re not trying to get anywhere. This is just what we’re doing. And the record is just the documentation of that.”

Aligning with this, the group doesn’t have social media and doesn’t want to put their music on any of the streaming giants. “I don’t think spreading things everywhere makes them more accessible,” notes Ægir. “[Our music] is accessible to anyone and everyone in the spaces where it does exist, and that just gives it more focus there.”

With their releases, symfaux has a simple thesis statement: “We’re just trying to capture some kind of honesty about what a rock band is.”

You can find symfaux’s mowerpic and carmonk on Bandcamp, and you can find mowerpic on 180g vinyl at Reykjavík Record Shop.