With the upcoming release of their highly awaited second long player In the dark, which will be released on March, 1st., Icelandic band Vök gave us the chance to ask them about the process of making music, their gear, inspirations and their hometown-tips.
Watch out for the album review in a couple of days, to sum it up: It is a fantastic second album.
But for now – let Vök speak:
How do you write/create a song? Is there a melody in the beginning – or is there a beat/drums?
It usually starts with a synthesizer or some kind of a core. Then I play around with vocals or I go all the way with adding drums and other instruments to figure out what mood im searching for. It varies by days but that’s my typical routine.
How ‘hard’ has the process of writing the highly anticipated second album been?
Not that hard, I was creating a lot of demos while we were touring Figure, the long bus hours really helped me kind of get into a little writing zone and as soon as the touring schedule got less busy we started the recordings for In The Dark. Because we felt like we were hungry to make another album since we had all the material prepared and we were also excited to try new thing and try out other directions with our music. We felt much more pressure with our first album Figure.
Does the surroundings and landscape play a massive role in your songwriting process?
No not intentionally , but it might in a way. Surroundings probably do play some role in the artists creative flow. It’s mainly feelings and lack of sunlight that play a massive role in mine.
The album is overall more uptempo and beat-driven as “Figure”. Is this a planned decision or happened it just in the making of the album?
We were changing directions and trying something new. We wanted to work around the Indie-pop genre were our first song “Before” came from. Doing something new might not please all of our fans that’s what makes me nervous but you can’t please everyone sadly. We are really happy with the album and hope our fans will be also.
Is a track in icelandic language a possibility or did you make a decision to go for english only?
All the songs are in english. I haven’t written anything in Icelandic for a while now but i absolutely love singing in icelandic, i might go back to it one day.
There is a decent amount of warm and anlogue synthesizers in there. Can you tell us a little bit about your gear?
There’s a bunch of Juno-60 and Nord lead 4. A bit of Prophet 600, OB-6 and Moog phatty. Much love for synthesizers but we also have some soft synths in there.
What can we expect on the upcoming tour?
Definitely a more upbeat show compared to our last tours, and we are touring with our own light tech and lights so that will help give the show a nice visual touch.
And always trust the locals – what bar or restaurant is “THE PLACE” at the moment in your local neighborhood?
Húrra is a bar we go to a lot, can’t say there is one “PLACE” for dinner but we really like Reykjavík Roasters and Pallet which are café’s, and also Flatey which is a really nice sourdough pizza place :)
Thank you very much for answering our questions – and good luck for the tour!
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