Iceland

I think I’m a much better Icelander abroad than I am in Iceland. In Iceland, everyone thinks I’m really foreign and eccentric and really strange and they don’t understand me and my music sounds very awkward and foreign. And then I go abroad and they say, "Oh, you are so strange and awkward. That must be because you are from Iceland." I quite like that, you see. And then all the people I work with - say one minute I’m working with a string quartet and the next minute I’m working with techno people and the next minute I’m working with the saxophone quartet and the next minute I’m working with a flute player - I always liked being the one being like "OK that’s cool, but have you thought about this ?", and almost kind of gently say, "Listen, don’t take this for granted. There’s more to this." And not because I’m destructive but just to kind of keep things alert.

Bust, october 1996