Stereo Hypnosis & Christopher Chaplin

Icelandic electronic music trio Stereo Hypnosis and acclaimed British experimental musician and avantgarde composer Christopher Chaplin have played a number of concerts together in recent years. During that time, the idea of recording an album based on these live electronic improvisations began to emerge. In the summer of 2018 a fully equipped recording studio was set up in the town of Hvammstangi in northern Iceland, where the album »Bjarmi« was recorded live. The name of the album and all the track titles are based on places on the mysterious Heggstaðanes peninsula, that lies just over the sea from town.

STEREO HYPNOSIS (IS)

Óskar Thorarensen – one of the founders of the collective Brut art group Inferno 5 – and his son Pan Thorarensen form the Icelandic electronic trio Stereo Hypnosis together with Thorkell Atlasson. The trio coalesced between field recordings and photo sessions on the remote island of Flatey in 2006.

They have an organic sound, serene and down-tempo – electronically climbing the unforgiving Icelandic highlands.

Pan and Óskar, have a combined musical career of over forty years in Iceland, and are well known and respected for their work. For the past ten years Stereo Hypnosis have been touring various countries around the globe. They are also leading promoters of the Icelandic electronic music scene and founders of Extreme Chill, an annual festival which has drawn both local and foreign electronic music enthusiasts into the amber embrace of Icelandic nature. Thorkell has been involved in contemporary classical music and pop from an early age. He studied classical guitar and has worked as a composer and electronic musician in Rotterdam. Many of his previous works have been performed all around Europe and America.

(pic by © Ómar Sverrisson)