The Circumstances That Lead to an All-Vocal Album (Interview)

It was interesting for me, probably several reasons that I certainly was very keen to get back to that sort of human spirit place before tools or extensions or civilisation or religion or patriotism just didn't seem like a good idea, you know.

I think there was probably several things that brought me to that point, first of all, I'd completed sort of a cycle I fell after doing Homogenic and Vespertine and Greatest Hits, and I had a chance to go back to the beginning, you know, where I'm made from.

Also, just on a musical level, I've been rеally spoiled rotten like thе Vespertine Tour was done with 70 people on-stage, it was almost more people on-stage than in the audience and it's like, you know, I mean how spoiled rotten can you get, you know, where are you gonna go from here like 500 people on-stage, or 10000 you know, so it was kinda time for me to not have more bag of tricks, just to go back and make things out of what I'm made of, not just sort of show-off-y, you know

And then also, I hate to admit it, but I, the only way to tell the truth is to say that I was lightly affected by the whole 9/11 and, you know, all these people comming out of the woods that are obsessed with the book that was written 2000 years ago, so part of me wanted to make music that was made by humans like even before that or something and just come up with a better idea or something.

So I was really keen on doing songs that would be quite full-bloodied and visceral just to prove that you didn't have to make a new-age album, like a linear album, if you're gonna make only vocals, or ambient albums, you know, with full respect to ambient the music, but, eh.

And it wasn't actually until the end of the album where it sort of slowly became possible, and actually realistic that it actually could be an all-vocal album, 'cause I did set up to work with a lot of vocals, but maybe not be, like, puritan, you know.

Also, I keep going back and back to it. That when I was about 18, I was working- I was in a band called Kukl and we were all doing side-projects with each other and I would do with the drummer, I would do this stuff where I was recording in the studio layers of myself, vocals, that sort of I would say is a bit out of the roots to Medúlla and also doing a project with a guitarist from Kukl with this song Siðasta Ég is from.