Frakkur | 2000 - 2004 (3LP)
Frakkur was the artist name Jónsi used for his experiments in electronic music. Working on his own, either at home in Reykjavík, in hotel rooms on tour with Sigur Rós, or later at his boyfriend’s house in Boston, Jónsi spent endless hours diving into then-new bits of kit and programming, having fun and seeing how far he could push things.
The legacy is three collections of work totalling 25 tracks collated into one triple album - each made a year or so apart, under slightly different circumstances and with different equipment.
The oldest, 2000-2001, was made on Jónsi’s first PC laptop, named The Tank for its unwieldy size. The second, 2002-2003, was made in his small flat in the middle of Reykjavík, where he set up his first home studio in a cupboard, so that it could be packed away at night. The final part of the Frakkur trilogy, 2003-2004, was made in Cambridge, Mass. in breaks of Sigur Rós touring. His partner, Alex Somers, had by then introduced Jónsi to the programme Logic, and this he coupled with a Yamaha VSS-30 toy keyboard to sample his voice in what he describes as a spontaneous and exciting process.