Sunna Margrét steps into the light

Þórisdóttir was catapulted to fame when she joined electro-pop outfit Bloodgroup in 2010, aged only 18 at the time. The period completely upended her life’s trajectory, with Þórisdóttir dropping out of school and travelling the world with the band.

A year prior, she was just a shy girl from the suburbs. Music had always been a part of her life, with her father part of famed folk band Savanna tríóið, her grandmother having been in a choir most of her life and her grandfather an accomplished accordion player. “At family events there was always sheet music everywhere,” she recalls fondly. “I was born into music and was singing as soon as I could form sounds.”

As a teenager, Þórisdóttir enrolled in FÍH music college alongside Fufanu’s Kaktus Einarsson, Agent Fresco’s Arnór Dan and Sykur’s Halldór Eldjárn to study jazz singing but what ignited her interest in modern music was going to Iceland Airwaves as a teenager.

“All my friends were buying tickets for this festival that I had never even heard of before, so I joined them and immediately fell in love with being in downtown Reykjavík with so much music," Þórisdóttir tells me. She describes wandering from venue to venue in awe of her surroundings, with the whole city centre turning into small venues: “It didn’t matter where I went, there was always something amazing there. The music, the songs, the mood… Being a 17-year-old at Airwaves was the most awesome experience.”

Þórisdóttir knew some of the people on stage such as Retro Stefson’s Unnsteinn Manuel and Logi Pedro from her school choir, and felt welcome as a fan attending the festival. When she was invited a year later to join Bloodgroup as the band’s new singer, things changed quickly. Þórisdóttir had only played one show, an unplugged set with the band and Ólafur Arnalds at Reykjavík's Café Rosenberg, before she took to the stage at Airwaves. “That unplugged show was much closer to what I had been comfortable with,” she says gleefully, “but playing this huge electronic pop show at Airwaves was unbelievable and so surreal. People were screaming and clapping and having such a great time. We played an absolutely packed show at [local club] Nasa – there was a queue around the whole block to see us.”

Following that show she toured with the band, travelling to New York and further afield. “I didn’t return to school after that, my life was heading in a different direction," she adds.

When she left her native Iceland six years later, Þórisdóttir went on a journey of self-discovery, embarking on a BA in fine art at the École cantonale d'art de Lausanne, and then a master’s degree. She fell in love, created her own artistic network and started a label No Salad Records with her partner (and now husband) Stéphane Kropf.

Þórisdóttir played with Bloodgroup for five years, during which time they released their third album Tracing Echoes in 2013. When she found herself in Switzerland she still had other musical ambitions and embarked on a solo project. "I didn’t really think about starting a solo career, I just started writing and before I knew it I had a collection of songs ready," she says. At the time she didn’t have the numerous synths and drum machines she’d grown accustomed to with Bloodgroup, but she did have a laptop loaded with Ableton and her voice. "I worked with what I had," she tells me.

Being an Icelandic artist living in Switzerland was not without its challenges, she confesses: “There’s a loneliness that comes with moving abroad, not speaking the language that everyone around you does, and being away from friends and family. I’m sure that’s tangible in my music.”

Engaging with her artistic studies without being fluent in her teachers’ language also erected barriers. “I had to find ways of expressing myself and partaking in the creative process, to use something other than words," she recalls. "I think one hundred percent that that’s infected how I use my voice as a musician, as an instrument rather than a way to express lyrics; to convey a mood rather than say how I feel.”

Þórisdóttir first solo release was 2017’s “Hero Slave” single where she combined haunting vocals with lo-fi beats. Since then she’s released four singles, two EPs and earlier this March her debut album Finger on Tongue. Much of the album was written in 2020; when Covid-19 had hit and while society shut down and Þórisdóttir was pregnant with ideas and her son.

“Many of the songs are a confrontation with the wrongs of the world and a release of pent-up energy," she explains. "I have a strong sense of justice, and I don’t ever want to stop fighting. Maybe it’s the anarcha-feminist in me, but I don’t think you can ever stop. You need to make yourself heard. We need to look out for each other."

When she started making music, Þórisdóttir would work with other people’s compositions and add melodies and lyrics on top, but since she went solo she’s approached the process in a very different way: “I often start making music by fiddling around. Recently I’ve been stepping into the studio with other artists to make music collaboratively in the moment. I’ll feel like having a certain bass line, a set synth, and even a tambourine, to make a particular sound. That idea might be complete then, or I might put it in a drawer and leave it to percolate for three years before refining it, edit and polish, add or remove vocals or samples. Sometimes I feel like it’s all ridiculous, but then something happens down the line.”

This was all drilled into her through studying for a fine arts degree. “This artistic approach is all about trying things and asking questions,” she adds. “I always want to be trying new things when I’m composing. I don’t want to repeat myself, I don’t want to make the same song twice.”

Releasing the work is often just the beginning for Þórisdóttir, as it changes through performance. “It’s often such a relief when a piece is released because it’s done, but then it mutates," she tells me. "When I’m working on a track just by myself, it’s isolated, but then there’s space to expand on it. Performing live is a dialogue with the audience; you’re not alone anymore."

Þórisdóttir feels this dialogue becomes even more involved when more live elements are in the show. “When it’s just me singing and playing to a backing track, I’m playing to my previous arrangement. I can’t really change too much besides the intensity of my vocals because I’m bound to certain timings. But with a live band, there’s so much space for improvisation.”

In 2018 Þórisdóttir was asked by Dream Wife's Rakel Mjöll to warm up for her band's Swiss show, and she felt a desire for a richer live aspect for her performance. She asked a few friends to join her on stage. “I don’t remember if it went well or not,” she says laughing. “I’m a big fan of Can and love improv, but we hadn’t practised at all together! And yet it worked, so we decided to continue with this idea.”

Over several years the backing track was phased out, leading to a drastically different Airwaves performance in 2023, where Þórisdóttir experimental electronic lo-fi drum-machine art pop was transformed into an indie-rock power ballad. It was one of the most fun and thought-provoking live sets of the festival, not only because of how it defied expectations but because of how engaging it was. “It was so much fun seeing the response to that show, to let the songs really breathe,” she says fondly. “Performing it this way also lets me experience the songs in a new way and learn something about them that I hadn’t seen before. It’s incredibly rewarding and encouraging as an artist.”

She’s dialled things back a little since that show, she tells me, turning more towards the electronic pop that the songs were written to be. “Maybe it’s not even that; like I said earlier, I don’t like repeating myself, ” she says slyly. She has a new band that was unveiled at this year’s Innipúkin festival in August, a lineup she’s so pleased with she took them with her to play a KEXP show in Seattle earlier this month, and is planning to perform with the same group at Airwaves.

The new band includes sibling duo Sigurlaug Thorarensen and Sveinbjörn Thorarensen, respectively on guitar/backing vocals and synth, and Sólrún Mjöll Kjartansdóttir on drums, with Þórisdóttir herself fully embraced playing the bass live. Throughout our conversation, she repeatedly describes how bass lines are what she usually notices first in a performance: “As a child I was fascinated by the double bass in jazz. I would always stare at it and admire how with just two or three notes it can hold an entire piece together. Somehow I never learned to play it until a year ago, and now I play the electric bass at my shows.”

Þórisdóttir also tells me how captivated she is by sincerity in lyrics. "A song doesn’t need to be gentle to be sincere, in fact it’s sometimes better if it’s punk rock or something loud,” she observes. As an example Þórisdóttir mentions a recent PJ Harvey show she went to: “She doesn’t chat much in between songs, but everything she says is so on point.”

For now she says she’s just excited to play again with her new band. “It’s always different and thrilling to see what happens, because you’re working with other people who react to what you’re doing. You’re making something together. I don’t know if this love of improv is from jazz, but it’s very chaotic and fulfilling and leaves songs more open to interpretation.”

She’s the first to admit that it’s always considerably more stressful to play at Airwaves. “Airwaves is of course home. It’s the festival where I took my first steps as a professional performer, and it’s always been a platform for me and supported me and my projects, both my solo works and when I was in Bloodgroup. [But] it’s always more difficult to play for an audience that knows you. It’s a lot harder for me to play at Airwaves than it was to play for a thousand people in China with Bloodgroup. I know I’m not alone in thinking this–Sigur Rós said something similar long ago–It’s a real phenomenon!”