Original subtitles

For the most part, Icelandic music...

is crap.

Maybe not the musicians, but everything about it.

Everybody is always in such a hurry, there's no budget, and so on.

And therefore, the results are bad.

Yet people keep asking me, "Why is Icelandic music so special?"

The reason is that, all the bands that are any good,

they all know that their music won't be played on the radio,

they know they won't sell more than 200 albums in Iceland,

especially if it's a young band.

So they make music just as they please.

There were no proper instruments in Iceland for centuries.

Then a few pump organs arrived.

Our melodies are like old litany tunes

that a farmer might have tried to squeeze out of his pump organ in 1793.

The year of the census.

We're just showing off with small stuff, making it sound big.

Originally, the band was formed to play one gig for Kitchen Motors.

It was the most ridiculous thing anyone had heard of.

Four organ players in one band. Nobody believed it would work!

I want to stay true to my roots, and they are in the old rhymes.

My great grand uncle knew rhymes and hymns.

I learned them from him and I use them a lot in my music.

Tonight is a special night in the history of the presidential residence.

It's the first time that amplified music will have been played in this house.

Let's give a big hand to Trabant for an excellent performance.

This piece is by me, Hilmar �rn,

Sigur R�s and Mar�a Huld.

It turned out to be rubbish, but we like it.

I always listen to it when I'm drunk.

It sounds great like that.

Music is the ultimate art form.

It goes past the brain and cuts straight to the heart.

You get goose bumps from listening to music,

a physical response.

Slowblow is almost ten years old.

It came about when Orri and I had been in a rock group for years.

The group tried many times to record an album but always failed.

We had no money,

but still it was very important to us

to record in a professional studio.

But in there, the music just died.

We were on such a tight budget and in such a great hurry

that what we always ended up with was just a lifeless piece of junk.

The main characteristic of the music scene in Iceland

is a strong sense of friendship.

We help each other out.

If someone needs some equipment, somebody else will lend it to him.

There is a flow between the bands.

You might be playing in three different bands at the same time.

This family feeling makes Icelandic music what it is.

We're just doing what something inside of us tells us to do.

We took advantage of opportunities and were able to travel the world,

at the same time.

But there is no plan, except to enjoy the ride.

You never know what you really want, although it would be nice.

This is just something that sort of happened.

- I don't have a clue why we're here. - Me neither.

I never planned this.

I was going to work in a chocolate factory when we formed the band.

But my parents said no.

My theory is that when Iceland got independent in 1944,

it still took two generations to develop a real confidence.

My parents were born in the late '40s...

But when my generation came along we finally started to ask ourselves

what it meant to be Icelandic

and how to be proud of it instead of feeling guilty all the time,

like animal creatures colonized by Denmark for 600 years.

To finally feel like real people! It wasn't easy, you know.

But once punk broke in Britain in the late '70s,

we were infected by it and we discovered

that what mattered wasn't what you could do but what you really did

and we used this power to state a musical declaration of independence.

The film has aged very well. It preserves the spirit of an era.

People had strong opinions and we didn't censor them at all.

These garage bands with an inferiority complex...

Once they saw themselves on a big screen, sounding great,

they finally realized the energy and potential they possessed.

Give me some vocals.

That wasn't out of tune, was it?

We provoked kids who were still trying to be U2

or the Icelandic Beatles, instead of just being themselves.

For some mysterious reason, Reykjav�k teenagers in 1980

were interested in surrealism,

and it fused very naturally with punk.

Surrealist poetry is closely related to ancient Icelandic verse.

One of the first surrealists was probably Egill Skallagr�msson.

So what you have is screaming patriotism

combined with heavy doses of adolescence.

I can't play anything, he knows a tiny, tiny bit

and the drummer knows even less and he sure can't play drums.

�eyr was a great band.

It could have been an international success,

but they blew it because they were too lazy.

It takes a great effort to break through the barriers overseas.

You have to make sacrifices, as those who have can testify.

The artists of this period

came to a crossroads.

Either they could become part of society or they could keep on creating art

that was original and provocative.

So we thought, "How about creating a band that plays pop music,

"but remains loyal to the manifesto of Bad Taste Ltd,

"World Domination or Death?"

Pop music was unknown to us,

we were phobic towards it.

Since we thought that most pop music was tasteless,

why shouldn't we set an example and conquer the world?

World Domination or Death.

A summary of the manifesto of Bad Taste Ltd.

Article One.

Since bad taste and thrift is the nemesis of creativity,

Bad Taste Ltd is firmly against anything representing good taste.

The Sugarcubes were always about creating a fun atmosphere,

a collective state of mind in which we could enjoy ourselves

while creating something with a little spark of creativity.

The music is a collection of sounds that we fool around with.

In Ghostigital, we might record a beat,

put another layer over it,

cut it up, reverse it, et cetera.

We work with many things at once.

Of course, it is great to work with the voice of Einar �rn,

creating different layers of it, both in Icelandic and English.

And then take the content and mess it up, see it from another view.

This is a very logical way of making music today.

When you watch TV, you get a lot of different information at once.

A music video covers only a quarter of the TV screen.

In my music, I want to see things from different angles.

That's what Ghostigital is about.

Punk was political but nobody heard the lyrics.

That's the beauty of rap music. It's the art of the spoken word.

Rap is connected to the past, it's for people to hear and understand.

Unlike in rock music, the voice in rap isn't just another instrument...

That's not what rap music is about.

In one minute you can explain the situation of a whole continent,

or the details of a domestic situation.

To me, hip-hop is one of the highest forms of art, although it is often abused.

It's connected to everyday speech, you can speak your mind.

And yes, in rap there is a direct link to the past.

By using sounds from your everyday environment,

sounds that people normally don't associate with instruments,

music has become more objective.

It is no longer a gift from God.

It has been brought to the people.

By sampling cutlery or a passing car, it feels more personal.

This is the difference between practicing the violin all day

and messing about with the samples in your computer.

The latter makes the music more personal.

We make music the way we want to.

Maybe it sounds feminine, but that's the way we like it.

I've heard a theory about Icelandic music.

It also applies to cities like Detroit,

Manchester and other cold cities where it rains a lot.

There isn't much going on in cities like these

and the only feedback you'll get comes from your mum.

And, of course, she always says, "This is just great."

- What can I get you? - Nothing for me.

Vodka, vodka, vodka...

Rock and roll, man. We have Vinyl here in the studio,

and boy, do they reek of alcohol!

We promise to behave!

Here we go.

Make it a little lower.

This is just to show that we are brothers in this circus.

Keeping him close to my heart just shows how much I love the guy.

This is it!

Backstage, we joke around, tell dirty stories and shit.

Just to get in the mood.

My girlfriend made one phone call and got the keys to the church.

The priest was away and no masses planned for a month.

The people were happy that somebody could use the church.

It has a good organ. I can play as loud as I can, whenever I want.

Foreigners always ask about elves, trolls, Sigur R�s and Bj�rk.

And whether we are, you know, all dancing in and out of cliffs.

That's OK. On a bad night, I fear the ghosts as much as anyone else.

But I grew up with the country balls, that's my inspiration.

Farms and fishermen, rather than elves and trolls.

It's a pretty shitty place to start out as a band.

There aren't many people, but it's a short drive to Reykjav�k.

This place has nothing to offer.

- Sometimes it is good to be here. - By yourself.

There are two or three girls here.

Everybody has been with them.

When you sing in Icelandic, people listen more closely.

Rather than English.

It's hard for me to write lyrics that make sense, especially in Icelandic,

so I just prefer to write some bullshit in English.

I wanted to explore what I was made of, the ancient stuff.

And from another perspective

came a thought about love for your country and world religion.

Which doesn't seem to be a very good idea these days.

And this record, Med�lla, was the result.

It's really about humankind, before everything else happened.

I'd like to add one thing.

It's up to you whether you use it in the film or not.

It struck me that the national anthems of the world,

they're all the same song.

All patriotic music seems to be created in the same kind of mood.

It's always the same song, played in different versions.

"Oh, how Icelandic," people say, or,

"Oh, how Mongolian!" "Oh, how French!" Or, "Oh, how Brazilian!"

But the music isn't different, it's just the mood we get into.

And I thought the time had come to shake that up a little bit.