Brynhildur Karlsdóttir Kvikindi promises fun
Brynhildur Karlsdóttir has had a lot to do in Icelandic music. She has been a founding member and singer of the punk band Hörmónar since 2016, which quickly became a legend in the genre.
She graduated from the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2019, the same year she also teamed up with classical composer Friðrik Margrétar-Guðmundsson to form Kvikindi, a band that has defied any permanent definition – and they have certainly been making a name for themselves in Iceland. Their debut album ‘Ungfrú Ísland’ was released at the beginning of October and they will play Airwaves on Saturday at KEX Hostel.
But first of all: what is Kvikindi?
Real stuff
“We’ve been mulling over many phrases,” says Brynhildur about trying to define the act: “Dance, dance pop, internet pop. The dance pop phenomenon is one of my favorites. We want to have a world around the band, if that makes sense. It’s like girly glitter. Also honest, talking about real stuff, but humorous.”
A great example of this is the song Ókei, a single that hit the Icelandic media last year, and not just because of the catchy dance beat or the charmingly disturbing music video, but also because she dedicated the song to her friend. her who took her own life following a terrible sexual assault case.
Putting so much of her heart into the line is very much in line with what Brynhildur is all about, and the album itself achieved the rare feat of being a creation she has been mostly happy with.
“I often feel when I release something and I look at it, I’m like I would have done this or that differently,” she says. “But I was really happy with this album. I mean of course I hear everything and there are maybe two things that I would like to change.”
However, Brynhildur explains that the process of making the album “took much longer than we expected.”
“We wanted to release it last year,” she says. “But then, when I was listening to it, I was like, ‘OK, this was just the time it needed.'”
Endless possibilities
The different backgrounds of Brynhilda and Friðrik have been a good combination and made Ungfrú Ísland what it is.
“We thought about this as a whole and how we wanted the songs to reach into each other,” explains Brynhildur. “Like how some songs end on the same note the next one starts on.” We really thought about it as a whole, but also song by song.”
This included experimenting with voice effects, testing what the studio can do and drawing from their different musical backgrounds.
“I’m coming from a punk background and he’s coming from a classical background,” she says. “So to be in a studio where the possibilities are endless, it was really exciting for both of us.
Taking stock
“It’s as if I’m trying to convey some things,” says Brynhildur about the poetic content. “Working through the last year of my life: love and also loss, working on yourself, going to a psychiatrist. All these things I was going through and maybe a lot of people go through before you have kids when you’re like 20 something. Figuring out life.”
I’ll admit that this seems like pretty heavy stuff, but she offers an assessment of her lyrics that could easily be applied to life itself: “It’s also just really funny and fun. I think there are some heavy songs. And yes, we were trying to say something, but it’s still silly and fun.”
Miss Iceland is out on Spotify.