September 21, 2007
Valgeir Sigurdsson
Today’s Independent runs a profile of Icelandic producer and musician Valgeir Sigurdsson, who has produced records for Björk since 2000 and released his first album earlier this year.
Driving through the ash-black lava fields around Reykjavik airport to his home studio, the Greenhouse, the isolation that Sigurdsson's clients agree to becomes clear. It is here in the suburban sprawl in the hills around the city, in a street built for artists in the 1970s, that he and Björk first conceived their philosophy of "domestic music". "She would bounce crazy ideas off me, like making a song out of all the sounds in the kitchen," he says. "Quite early on, the conceptual side existed in [her Vespertine of 2001]: the intimacy of the vocal performance, and using chamber music, because that was created in the home.
"I've carried on that domestic way of working here," he continues. "It's full on. There's no divide between living and music. Will Oldham [aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy] created pressure for himself when he brought all his musicians here to Iceland in the middle of winter for last year's The Letting Go. It could fail, and it would be a disaster if it did. But taking musicians into my home feels like the right way to make music. It's obviously very personal, because you can't escape. I get really involved emotionally. Ending a project feels like ending a relationship."
I’ve listened to Sigurdsson’s album, Ekvílibríum, several times. Fans of Björk’s music will certainly find much to like in its sliced-and-diced organic sounds and plethora of guest performances. What surprises me is that no one seems to have yet made the connection to Cornelius, another musician who runs (ran?) his own label and whose music is marked by many layers brought together with stunning precision. (There is a reason, I think, that Cornelius named his 2000 album Point and Sigurdsson titled a track “Focal Point.”) On Ekvílibríum, as on Cornelius’s 1997 album Fantasma, every note identifies itself to the listener’s ear: Strings, electronic beats and clicks and pops, synthesizer swells, guitars, and vocals snugly interlock to create organic-seeming compositions. Most reviewers have been correct in identifying the two Sigurdsson tracks featuring Oldham—“Evolution of Waters” and “Kin”—as the album’s best, although I’m also partial to the syrupy strings of the short interlude titled “Before Nine.”
Sigurdsson performs with Nico Muhly and Sandro Perri on Friday, October 5 as part of New York's Wordless Music series.