Sigtryggur Baldursson

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Sigtryggur Baldursson (Reykjavik, Iceland, October 2, 1962) is a band musician from the 1980s; he is currently a session drummer.

Biography

Siggi's musical initiation began in 1980 when he held the position of drummer for the avant-garde punk band Þeyr, alongside Hilmar Örn Agnarsson on bass, Magnús Guðmundsson on vocals, Þorsteinn Magnússon (ex-Eik member) on guitar and Guðlaugur Kristinn Ottarson on guitar.

Their first concert was given on January 28 of the same year at the Saga Hotel. Þeyr was a very sophisticated band with a deep philosophical and physical inspiration: all its members were by then intellectuals in music, science, philosophy, religion and even magic. Þeyr's music reflected various musical influences: Igor Stravinsky, Aleksandr Skriabin, Joy Division, Holger Czukay, Birthday Party, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Nina Hagen, David Byrne, Yes, Genesis, the Grateful Dead, and John McLaughlin.

Þeyr's first album was Þagað í Hel released in 1980. In 1981 the album Mjötviður Mær came out, featuring songs like "Iss& #34;, "Þeir" and "2999" which can be considered as attempts to create a style of futuristic pop thanks to the help of vocal distortions, keyboards and additional rhythms. The song "Úlfur" also stands out for containing a more angry voice style, making it one of the best of this work.
Also noteworthy are the instrumental “Mjötviður”, which gives the album its name, and “Rúdolf”, an anti-fascist song.
In 1981 they also released the single Iður til Fóta which featured songs like “Teðrukkinn”, “Bás 12” and "Brennunjálssaga", the soundtrack of the film of the same name. Directed by Friðrik Þór Friðriksson about the saga of Njál. Later the same year Life Transmission came out, the next single.

In 1982 Þeyr's third and last album came out: As Above.... This work contains English versions of Þeyr's hits. One song that stands out from the rest is "Killer Boogie", because it is considered an attempt by the group to have international significance. Later they participated in a concert in Reykjavík from which a live album called Rokk í Reykjavík (Icelandic for “Rock in Reykjavík”) was recorded with all the important Icelandic bands at the time. Þeyr participated with two songs: “Killer Boogie” and “Rúdolf”. Later in the same year they released their last single, The Fourth Reich with a use of percussion and rhythmic efforts than in previous works, standing out in this sense the song "Zen" with an orientation towards rock much deeper.
Also in that year, Killing Joke singer Jaz Coleman moved to Iceland out of fear that the world was coming to an end. Once there he made musical collaborations with different bands, but above all with Þeyr, coming to form a group originally called Iceland, but later called Niceland by Guðlaugur, without the presence of Þorsteinn Magnússon. After rehearsing for weeks, Niceland prepared to record 5 songs in 1983, of which two were not completed; the three songs recorded were: "Guess Again", "Catalyst" and "Take What's Mine". These were never officially released and remain unreleased to this day.

In 1983 they released Lunaire, a single in which the song that gives it its name stands out for being considered the most punk-oriented song by Þeyr loaded with distorted guitars and quite futuristic sounds

The only physical record of Þeyr's existence were his seven vinyl records. In 2001, family and friends contributed to the release of rediscovered unreleased mixes of Iður til Fóta and Mjötviður Mær, so the new CD was renamed Mjötviður til Fóta and is the only Þeyr record in existence. The reason the seven vinyl records were not reissued is that the original recordings were lost or believed to be stolen.

In 1983 the singer of Purrkur Pillnikk Einar Örn Benediktsson met Björk (from Tappi Tíkarrass) when a DJ was leaving his job in the radio and to say goodbye he brought together the avant-garde artists from Iceland which also included Einar Örn and Björk, Einar Arnaldur Melax from Medúsa, her bandmate, Guðlaugur Kristinn Óttarsson, and Birgir Mogensen from Með Noktum, and finally Siggi Baldursson. After composing and rehearsing for two weeks, they introduced themselves as KUKL ("Sorcerer" in Icelandic).

Although KUKL's style was a type of dark gothic rock in the vein of Killing Joke and avant-garde references to The Fall's after-punk, it was later defined by Björk as "existential jazz-punk-hardcore".

While touring Iceland they performed with Crass, and later visited the UK for a series of performances with Flux of Pinks Indians. KUKL produced The Eye in 1984.
The Eye was followed by Holidays in Europe (The Naughty Nought) in 1986 which, like the previous record, was released through Crass Records.

By this time Björk had been dating Medúsa guitarist Þór Eldon Jónsson and was pregnant, so KUKL's countless tour trips within Europe became a very intense task: “We went to England and played with punk bands to support the miners for three weeks. We had bought an old Ford Transit and removed the rear seats. Melax had built a platform there to put the equipment on, with sleeping bags on top. So we traveled and traveled and traveled. We played a bit too, but mostly we were traveling.
That's what I remember the most. Endless round trips across Europe. We had only one helper for the first half of the trip, but Guðlaugur insulted him so much that he went back to his house. Guðlaugur survived on photosynthesis and a little yeast; he was so rotten that he could recharge the vehicle's battery with mind power.
On a marathon trip from Berlin to Paris I had just fallen asleep on the platform when I woke up hearing our singer [Björk] screaming like a slaughtered pig: “MURDERERS!”
I jumped so fast that I hit my head on the roof, and when I saw that the killers were bulldozers dragging trees along the road and widening it, my first thought was: 'fucking maniacs everywhere... they should lock this woman up before she does any harm'; Of course it's too late now."

The band broke up and in the summer of 1986, but on June 8, 1986 Björk gave birth to Sindri Eldon Þórsson, a date that is also cited as the official birth of Sykurmolarnir that would eventually be translated into its equivalent in English: The Sugarcubes. At that time, Einar Örn and Þór Eldon were running a new organization called Smekkleysa or officially known as Bad Taste, a countercultural record label that encouraged the artistic work of young Icelanders, which Siggi would describe as follows: “It's better than the road is long, then there is enough time to philosophize about how it is the journey that matters and not the destination. Bad Taste's road has been a long one, and it keeps getting longer, although I couldn't tell if it's getting big. The repository at least is expanding with frightening speed, in fact, one can find a number of titles that really shouldn't be called best-sellers. This is one of the things that's so great about the company: how much stuff is ready to go, but not selling at all. In many ways, it's an incredibly stupid company. At least, considering how you think it should be managed. If we were talking about a long straight road, this company is taking a more tortuous path and hasn't always stayed on asphalt."

The Sugarcubes' style of music had a more commercial approach than previous bands, because according to Einar Örn money was needed to cover expenses.

The Sugarcubes were Björk, Siggi Baldursson, Einar Örn and Einar Melax, with Þór Eldon, Bragi Ólafsson and Friðrik Erlingsson; Einar Melax would later be replaced by Margrét Örnólfsdóttir on keyboards. Óttarsson and Mogensen did not follow the group. Siggi remembers the Sugarcubes stage as the least stressful: “[with KUKL] the road had become very long. But, it was a kind of happy suffering, to tell the truth. Thus, two years passed and the suffering diminished with the Sugarcubes.”

The Sugarcubes' first single Amæli (Birthday, in its English version), became a huge hit in England. In this way they gained significant popularity in the United Kingdom and the United States and offers from record companies began to arrive. The band then signed to One Little Indian and recorded their first album, Life's Too Good, an album that brought them worldwide fame - the first Icelandic band to achieve such success. In 1988 they released their second album called Here Today, Tomorrow, Next Week!, an album that received the worst reviews attributed, in large part, to the constant meddling of Einar Örn.

The success of the Sugarcubes was waning and meanwhile, Björk was involved in other additional projects.
In 1992 the Sugarcubes released Stick Around for Joy, their most famous album, but despite the success achieved, tensions increased between Einar Örn and Björk and by the end of that year, an album was released. with remixes titled It's-It, the last release before the band broke up. Each member followed a different path, with Björk's career as a solo artist being the most successful.

After the Sugarcubes broke up, Siggi formed Bogomil Font og Milljónamæringarnir (Bogomil Font and the Millionaires) later renamed simply Bogomil Font, a bar band that played jazz and mambo with percussion and vocal tones, both in charge of himself. The album that the group released, with the title of Ekki Þessi Leiðinði, was number 1 in Iceland, and even came to replace Debut, the first solo album by his ex-partner Björk.

The same year, he moved to Wisconsin because his wife had earned a Ph.D. in the United States. About his studies he says: "I studied drums, hung out with my family and played sessions-experimental jazz, hippy rock, funk, everything." In 1995 Bogomil Font's last album came out: Bogomil Font Syngur Tónlist Eftir Kurt Weill, Norður og Niður and he collaborated with the world music band The Reptile Palace Orchestra, where they released an album titled Highway X, through Omnium Records and another collaboration was for the group Unun where his former partner Sugarcube, guitarist Þór Eldon, was for the group's debut album titled Æ. The same year he released Bogovil Font's second album, Út og Suður. In 1996 he participated in [Isobel (single)]] , a single from the album Post by the singer Björk.

He currently owns a session drum studio called The Slaughterhouse, in Hilversum, Wisconsin, from where he makes drum recordings for other artists either through MP3 or CD format, which allow faster transfer thanks to tools such as Protools 001. In 1996 he recorded a sample disc titled ADD - Acoustic Drum Disc, from English: Acoustic Battery Disc; album that contains 97 drum rhythms with jazz orientation, which led to his latest project, Dip with Jóhann (formerly Lhooq and Unun), which according to Siggi, "is mafia music for the '90s". He only released one album: Hi-Camp Meets Lo-Fi, in 1999. His last work in a band was in Grindverk, together with Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson and Einar Örn, a group created in 1997, and they released a single album, Gesundheit von K, at the beginning of 1999. After this date he has had several collaborations in which several works by electronic artist Howie B.

Siggi has stated in interviews that he misses the aspect of touring and band life, “but I like the fact that I've slowly become much more independent.”
Around February 2005, at the request of his friend, the ex-guitarist of Þeyr and KUKL Guðlaugur Kristinn Óttarsson, he is summoned to participate in the recording of an album and make promotional presentations in Iceland. The album would come out in mid-2005.

Discography

Þeyr discography (1980-1983)

Albums:

Singles:

Niceland (1983)

Other releases:

Appearances and collaborations:

KUKL discography (1983-1986)

Single:

Albums:

Appearances and collaborations:

The Elgar Sisters (1983-1986)

The Sugarcubes discography (1986-1992)

Albums:

Singles:

From Life's Too Good:

From Here Today, Tomorrow, Next Week!:

From Stick Around for Joy:

Collaborations:

Other releases:

DVD/VHS

Hljómsveit Konráðs B - (period 1989/1990)

Bogomil Font discography (1993-1997)

Videography

Dip's discography (1997-1999)

Appearances:

Grindverk discography (1999)

Sigtryggur Baldursson's collaborations

Session CD:

Videography

Commercials

Writings

Related bibliography