INTERVIEW: LA’s Reykjavik Festival welcomes Icelandic electronic star

Dj. flugvél og geimskip is an up-and-coming electronic music star in her native Iceland, someone who has combined pulsating beats with horror and science fiction-influenced lyrics for a wholly original musical experience. Dj. flugvél og geimskip, Icelandic for Airplane & Spaceship, will help open the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Reykjavik Festival Friday, April 7 at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Steinunn Eldflaug Harðardóttir, the sole performer in the band, will be joined on stage by múm, Skúli Sverrisson & Ólöf Arnalds, and JFDR. amiina will open the Made in Iceland opening night festivities.

“[The audience] can expect to be part of a story because when I play, there always is a story,” Harðardóttir said recently in a phone interview. “Together the audience and me, we will travel somewhere, and the story is made up at the time of the concert at the place. So I never know what’s going to happen, and so it’s a mix of electronic music and sounds and some story traveling.”

Harðardóttir said she’s unsure why her music is influenced by horror and science fiction elements, but it’s probably because the two genres have no limitations as far as subject matter.

“Science fiction is a place where anything can happen, so that’s a good place to be when making something like music or some kind of art,” she said. “Not everything in outer space has been discovered. There’s a lot of unknown territory. To make music about [that] is fun because I can do whatever, and it all can be real. … It’s not interesting if it’s all fun and good, and everything is happy all the time. We need to have some horrors. That is the thing that makes it interesting.”

Harðardóttir always loved music ever since she was a child. She was often called “the radio” by her friends because she was constantly singing around the house, trying to enjoy the many freedoms that musicianship allows.

Plus, she was in a creative place. Iceland, although relatively a small country population-wise, has exported many top-notch musical acts over the years. Björk is only the beginning of Iceland’s dominance on the music scene. In fact, one look at the Reykjavik Festival’s entire lineup, and it’s obvious that this island nation has championed, supported and diversified its musical offerings. In this two-month spectacle, audiences in Los Angeles will be able to experience Schola Cantorum Reykjavik in two performances, one conducted by Hörður Áskelsson, the other by Daníel Bjarnason; Sigur Rós with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Jóhann Jóhannsson; and Björk herself.

“It is a small country, and to get to make music, to get to play here, to play concerts is not that hard because if I was in New York or some big city, there [are] so many people making music,” Harðardóttir said. “It’s harder to get the attention of all the people of New York, but here, Reykjavik, I don’t know, we are like 150,000, and it’s much easier for anyone to make music and to get the attention or be a part of the scene.”

Harðardóttir remembers her early days as a professional musician. She would travel down to a club in Reykjavik and ask the venue if she could schedule a date in the future with a few of her friends who were in bands. It was that easy, and within two concerts, they were part of the scene.

“The music does not have to sound like the pop music of other countries,” she said. “So there’s not this pressure to make music like pop music. It’s easy because it’s smaller, easy to get to know the other musicians and people working together and playing together.”

Harðardóttir’s stage name, Airplane & Spaceship, has to deal with her view of music. An airplane takes people from the ground to the sky, and a spaceship takes people to outer space. That’s how she sees her songs and their transcendent qualities. “I think it’s a really good name for the music I do,” she said.

In the future, fans can expect a new album from Airplane & Spaceship, and the new effort will continue with her theme of otherworldly exploration. One look at her interests on Facebook, and it’s obvious that Harðardóttir enjoys odd legends in history and in life. Her interests are listed as ancient Egypt, mystics of the infinite space, horror stories, vivid dreams and things that disappear when you look at them.

Along those lines, the new album is about Atlantis, the legendary lost city.

“I made an album about outer space,” she said. “I made an album about the depths of the ocean and the bottom of the sea, so it’s the two places where no one has been. We have not discovered the bottom of the sea or outer space, but to connect it together, Atlantis is the city that the legend said sunk to the bottom of the sea. But the legend also said it was really an advanced city, so I think they could have traveled to outer space maybe before the city sunk. I don’t know what happened, but it’s an interesting topic and an interesting story.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Dj. flugvél og geimskip will be part of Opening Night: Made in Iceland as part of the Reykjavik Festival at the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in Downtown Los Angeles. The concert takes places Friday, April 7. Click here for more information and tickets.