Words: Shawn Goldberg
Photo: Sindri Mar

Icelander Sindri Sigfússon spent downtime between touring and recording a new Seabears album in a basement studio working on a random collection of songs. Under the moniker Sin Fang Bous, Sigfusson unleashed Clangour, a wild pop kaleidoscope of interstellar ilk and one of '09's most imaginative efforts.

REAX: Are you a classically trained musician?
SS: No. I took guitar lessons for two or three months. Then I took piano lessons for like maybe four or five months. It was when I was like 22 or something. I didn’t start playing the guitar until I was like 19 or 20.

REAX: What were you interested in doing before that?
SS: I don’t know. Before music, painting and drawing and being confused.

REAX: You didn’t want to be a musician until recently?
SS: No, I probably always wanted to be a musician. I think everyone wants to be in a famous band or something. I think the first thing I thought I wanted to be when I grew up was Michael Jackson. I was four or five and really liked his music.

REAX: You play all the instruments on Clangour. How did you learn to play all those instruments in ten years?
SS: Ten years is a long time. Even though there are lots of different instruments, it’s kind of based on the same two or three things, which is if you can play the guitar, it doesn’t take too long to pick up the banjo, the bass, the ukulele, other kinds of string instruments. If you try it it’s not very hard. If you can play the piano, then you can play lots of synthesizers and glockenspiels. Also the drums on the album I mostly did on computers. I’m horrible at drums. I can’t play in time, I always speed up the songs and stuff like that. People can do anything they want if they just try hard enough. I’m not exactly any sort of wunderkind on any instrument. Some people would think it would be better if I focused all my energy on one instrument and get really good at one instrument … but I think in the end it’s your imagination that counts, not how skilled you are.

REAX: Is there a specific reason you sing in English and not in Icelandic? Would it have hindered you from international exposure? Does it help?
SS: Most of the people speak English in Iceland. We start learning it in school when we’re like 10, until we’re 20. I also sing in English with Seabears. I don’t know why I do it. I want to sing something Icelandic, I have some projects going on, in the starting phase.

REAX: Do you think you could have made Clangour, but singing in Icelandic?
SS: Yeah, definitely. I could have. I don’t think it would have made a difference if I had sung it in English or Icelandic. I don’t know … I’ve made songs in Icelandic in the past, I’ve been in bands that do songs in Icelandic and I don’t think it matters if you do it in Icelandic or English, as long as you do it well and with conviction.

REAX: How long did it take you to record it?
SS: I probably started about the beginning of 2008. And in Seabears there are seven people so we’ve been recording this album that we’re finishing now for like a year in a half or something. When I had time, I used it to be in the studio and I wasn’t sure if I was making an album, or what I was doing. I was doing songs, but that ended up being an album and I finished it, I think in September of 2008. I also tried to do something else than what we were doing in Seabears. Because it’s a band, you play the songs, you rehearse the songs, then you play them live, then you record them. You know what the songs are like. There’s a purpose, record-wise. But with this I kind of, I didn’t know what I was doing, and I didn’t know what the songs were going to turn out like. Like sometimes for a week I’d go in the studio in the morning and go home in the evening, playing and playing and playing. Then I went on tour, or I went to go do something else. Come back, listen to it a lot. Took some things out and put some things in. So it was like that. I was doing lots and lots of stuff. Sometimes I'd just press record and go out into the recording room and just do something. Sometimes that worked out and sometimes not. Lots of editing and coming back.

With this album I want to do something I heard once. I was watching an artist's DVD, there was an interview with him and he said … that when he was working on his art he would listen to his crazy voice in the back of his head. He said that everyone has a crazy voice in the back of his head and if you listen hard enough you can hear it. I felt like I really understood what he was talking about. So with the whole album I kind of tried to listen to my crazy voice.

REAX: Is that the major difference for writing songs with Seabears? Do you not listen to your crazy voice as much?
SS: At least not for the album we’re making now. I think it’s more controlled, more thought out. It’s more of a thing we’ve been working on for a long time. Talking about and thinking about.

REAX: Were the lyrics for Clangour as random and sudden as the recording process?
SS: Yeah, maybe. With those, like I said, I was trying to listen to my crazy voice, but when I am writing lyrics, I think it’s the most difficult thing for me to do in the music. If I didn’t have to write the lyrics I would probably make like three albums a year. I spend the longest time on it. I don’t want it to be something stupid or that doesn’t mean anything to me. When I’m writing lyrics, most of the time I enjoy lots of metaphors and stuff like that. Because when you make an album and you’re playing the song for like two years after it, I don’t want to be singing some meaningless crap for two years, even if it sounds nice. With Clangour I was trying to be spontaneous and braver with my voice then I’ve been before, like above my range or screaming.

Clangour is out now on Morr Records.

myspace.com/sinfangbous