Description

Samaris – Silkidrangar Sessions

Silkidrangar Sessions is pressed on 12″ silver vinyl and includes an MP3 download card.

Samaris release Silkidrangar Sessions – a companion to 2014’s Silkidrangar debut, containing re-worked tracks from the original. Combining disparate elements of electronics (Þórður Kári Steinþórsson, aka ‘Doddi’), clarinet (Áslaug Rún Magnúsdóttir) and Jófríður Ákadóttir’s enchanting voice, Samaris mix glacial electronica and bold, percussive beats with haunting chant-like vocals – the lyrics culled from nineteenth century Icelandic poems.

Samaris had spent a good deal of the previous year on the road playing festivals like Roskilde, Green Man, Reeperbahn, Longitude, All Tomorrow’s Parties and Airwaves. Performing at different times of day and sometimes playing more unusual arts and gallery spaces, the trio found themselves instinctively tailoring the songs to suit what the environment suggested. So the idea for the Sessions album became, as singer Jófríður attests, “to try and capture the moments that happen live when we surprise each other and play around with our parts. I guess the main difference between Silkidrangar and the Sessions album lies within the rawness and improvisation that the sessions contain and the speediness with which they were recorded; we deliberately went into the studio with only a very loose idea of what we wanted to come out with.”

Employing ambient, acoustic and even dub elements, the reworked versions combine the immediacy of live performance with the flexibility of the studio. Recorded over two days in Reykjavík, to facilitate further improvisation the band invited contributions from local musician friends with diverse backgrounds, who added tabla drums, cello, saxophone and modular synth. “Before recording, we’d play them the song once, loosely describe the arrangement and then hit record,” says Jófríður. “The unexpected element, the session player, who has never heard the song and has a completely different feel for it, added that extra thing it needed to make it fresh and unique. We allowed ourselves to play them for as long as needed so a song that used to be 3 minutes is perhaps now 7 or 8.”

Tracklist:
Side One
1. Intro
2. Ég vildi fegin
3. Lífsins ólgubjór
4. Þótt hann rigni
Side Two
5. Hrafninn
6. Brennur Stjarna
7. Nótt (One For The Girls)