ARTIST OF THE MOMENT: Yagya

reading time: 22 minutes

In Vedic culture, a yagya is considered an offering, symbolizing the offering of one's "little self" to the "higher self." Although it is unclear to what extent Icelandic ambient and IDM artist Aðalsteinn Guðmundsson considered these aspects when selecting his artist name, for the author, his music serves as a medium for traversing between these selves. Yagya's interdimensional sounds transcend multiple genres and operate outside our current concept of time, imbued with somewhat divine timing. Time and offering are two elements that connect to the listening experience of the Icelandic producer, who creates albums intended to be enjoyed in their entirety. “Faded Photographs”, Yagya's 9th LP, explores triplets rhythm as a conceptual album and features numerous vocals and instruments layered over the signature Yagya magic. In our conversation with him we tried to get a little closer to how he creates this “interdimensional dream pop”.

Hi Steini, it's great to meet you! Today we'll talk about your latest record, but in general, what topics do you enjoy discussing during interviews?
Oh my God, I don't do that many interviews! I tend to get technical or talk on a conceptual level about creating music. I have these ideas in my head that I want to communicate, but it's sometimes hard because it's often abstract. 

“Faded Photographs” is your ninth studio album - congratulations! How does it feel to have such a big discography already and to come out with another long player?
Let's start by saying that this is my ninth album as Yagya. Before that, I released music under different names such as Plastic and Rhythm of Snow for at least two decades. However, I'm stubborn and decided some years ago to create ten albums as Yagya - it's my long-term goal. Creating albums takes time and grit, but it just feels normal to me. I always try to learn something new from each album instead of doing what I already know how to do. Building upon what I've done before keeps me excited about the process, which is why creating a new album is always great fun. It's all part of my bigger plan to create many albums, and I feel like I'm on the right track.

Where did the number 10 come from? 
I would say that I imagined: Maybe one day I'll create a best-of album. I'm not sure about that anymore. So I decided, okay, how many tracks does a best-of album have? Maybe 10 tracks. Most of my albums have 10 tracks, some 12 or 11. If I can create 10 albums and take the best song of each, I could create a pretty nice album from that. So, okay, I'll need to create 10 albums to create a best-of album with 10 tracks. That will probably be probably pretty good. It's sort of a numbers game, you know, create as much as possible!  I don’t know if I’m ever going to create that best-of album, but maybe a remix album or I don't know (laughs).
I keep changing what I want to do, but it's good to have some idea.

Where did the idea for this album start? Was there the vision first or was the music first and then you said, okay, this would fit nicely together as an album? 
Well, it's complicated because as I thought about the concept of creating music and the workflow over many months, it's: I get an idea, I make something, and the idea tells me, okay, maybe this is not a good idea, but you could do something like this. So it's a feedback loop, and I then update the idea. The seed for this album was quite different from how it turned out. I had created a folder on my computer called “Rough Edit”. And I said: let's create something rough, something raw that will not be worked on endlessly. And then I started working on it, and I was like, oh no, maybe not.  It didn't turn out to be a rough edit at all! A different thing was also a song that I listened to that had a particular rhythm. I got interested in the idea of why is all dance music with ‘four to the floor’? Why aren't we using triplets’ rhythms?  Why not try to create an album in which every song has this particular rhythm? If the history of music would've turned out differently, maybe everybody would be doing this kind of music with this rhythm and I thought like, okay, let's just try to make that work. It took a long time to get a nice flow in the rhythm.

I also really like sci-fi music, sci-fi literature and movies - things from a parallel dimension and I also liked the idea of using vocals.  I used to listen to Elliot Smith a lot, but now I'm listening to Phoebe Bridges and she's sort of my idol these days. She's so good. I wanted to create the kind of music I've been listening to - with soft vocals and nice melodies. So I combined them with the triplet’s rhythms from another dimension, my soundscapes, and other stuff I've used in the past. I built this album from these things as a concept.

When I listened to it, I could relate to what you just described. One of the words that came into my mind is that it sounds airy or breezy there, with depth and lightness. This quality seems present in all of your works. Can you relate to my perception? How do you achieve this effect?
It could be. It's hard to say. I probably see the album differently from you because I focus on different aspects- I see the leaves and you see the trees in a forest. I didn't intentionally make it sound like a breeze, as you described it. However, it's really important to me that I can listen to it repeatedly without getting tired of it. To achieve this, I work on the album during my free time and take notes of what needs improvement while listening to it at home or work. Funnily enough, once released, I can't listen to it anymore because I'm constantly worried that I messed something up or I need to change something. 

The album was produced during the pandemic when people couldn't always be close together. How did you collaborate with instrumentalists and singers during that time? Did you produce it separately or meet in the studio?
Well, I laid the foundation as best as possible. I wrote most of the lyrics and recorded the vocals with my own voice. Then I asked others to do the vocals. Benoit Pioulard just recorded at his cabin in the US. He did his thing with a theme that I had already recorded. That was all just over the internet. Same with Saint Sinner -  I sent her what I had recorded and asked her, can you sing this voice? She just sent me the files, and I mixed them in.
Since Bandreas lives in Iceland she came to my studio and we recorded her vocals there, but that was after I had finished almost all of the lyrics and recorded everything with my voice. We finished the lyrics for “My Own Way” together. In the end, we did the saxophone recording at my studio. I just had a synth line and I told Óskar Guðjónsson, can you play this synth line here? He also improvised, especially in the track called “The Way You Say My Name”. He did a really, really nice job!  We recorded many, many times and then- it's called comping-  choosing the best bits and editing them together. In short, I built the foundation and then asked people to replace what I had done with their interpretation and vocals or instruments.

Beautiful. And do you imagine bringing it onto a stage at some point?
I would love to. That would be so great, but it's kind of difficult for me personally. I've been dreaming about it.  No promises, but I'll try to make it happen!

A curiosity for me would be how the process of writing vocals, singing and producing for you merges in the studio. Where do you get the inspiration for the lyrics you write? 
Well, writing lyrics is completely different from creating techno music, I can tell you that. It does not come naturally to me, but just being stubborn, I can sit for two hours trying to write four lines. It's so time-consuming, crazy! As I mentioned before, Phoebe Bridges is extremely good at writing lyrics. Together with Elliot Smith, they're just two of my heroes in this kind of music. They're not trying to be abstract and they write about specific things - they write about something positive and negative and go back and forth with it. I like that approach to lyrics because life is just a series of good things and bad things happening. I also like melodramatic things. It makes me feel good listening to them. So I was trying to create a feeling rather than trying to say something specific. Music is really about feeling for me. I'm not aiming to be political. I want to be more timeless than not. I like melodramatic things, even though my life is not all melodrama, it's just everyday life trying to get the kids to school. 

Some themes are coming back again and again in your works. Sleep, Dream and - as you said just now- a sense of melodrama.
Definitely. I guess it's something that I come back to.  You put kick drums in every song and I put these words, something like that (laughs). It's just part of my toolkit I guess! 

This is something many people can relate to - part of the human experience. It's an anchor that hooks people to this music.
If it's successful, it should be relatable. However, creating relatable lyrics can be difficult because you don't want to be too specific or too abstract. Someone once said that really specific things are relatable, like looking at yourself in the mirror. So, I’m not sure how to do it, but I enjoy creating things and I wanted to create things that I don't know how to do. That's the way everybody learns. Doing things that are out of my comfort zone, that's what drives me.

Was there anything in the process of creating that album or any earlier works where you tried something and it didn't work as well as expected? Did you learn from those challenges during the process?
Yes, I changed things a lot!  I change things constantly and I never look back. I know from experience that I always override what I've done before and don't think about what has been done before, maybe just keep it in my memory. If something doesn't work, I just delete it, change it or try to make it work. If I have an idea, that might be good, but if it doesn't work, I work on it more. In some parts of The Serpent, when Saint Sinner recorded her vocals, we just cut some parts out and then said, no, it doesn’t work. It's a completely natural process to review and decide what to keep and what not. You create something, then you wait, listen again and say, okay, this doesn't work, but this works or something. You can't say this is all bad, and just throw it all away. You have to analyze what it is that doesn't work and change exactly that and nothing else.

If I understand correctly, does that mean you never have a fragment of a track that doesn't work at this moment in time, and you set it aside to revisit later for a future album? Some artists find old tracks on their drive and realize they could work now or be a foundation for something new.

Not for me. I have this one folder that I created with 20 ideas for this album and kept 11, I discarded half of it. I'll continue with this part of my collection, and I doubt I will access the old files because they're so uninteresting. Usually, I have an idea in my head about what I'm trying to do. You can't really hear it in the old files (laughs) because I have maybe some ideas of, okay, I'm going to add maybe some rain sounds in this and I'm going to add some saxophone and vocals, but I don't do it right away. I just keep it back in my head. I have to build the foundation really well and make the rhythm work. It’s like if you're building a house, make the walls sturdy and then you can decorate it with some nice sounds and vocals. That’s the way I work -  I just work on one idea and I try to finish it in three years or something.

You mentioned remixes earlier and I was wondering as to what extent your process differs when you remix, as you start with a foundation of someone else? 
In the rare event that I remix someone else’s music I usually try to recreate the melodies and chords with my own sounds. It can take a bit of time, but recently I have started using software to help me analyze the stems and convert them into midi. But once I have that all set up, I can work on the remix like it’s my own track, manipulate the sounds easily and have more control over the mix. Depending on the track, I will include some sounds from the original, maybe one or two! But it doesn’t take as long to remix as creating a new track from scratch because I don’t have to compose the music, except maybe add a few elements where needed. When remixing I try to use what I’ve learned from experimenting with my own music.

How is your studio set up? Is that close to home?
Actually, I have a room at my mom's place. I get to use one of her rooms rent-free. This is really nice. And I created so many albums there. My first Yagya album, “Rhythm of Snow” was produced in that exact room. When I started making music, I was living there, of course. And then later, I got this room I filled with bass traps and very nice speakers. I really like speakers.  Speakers feel like they're my instrument. That's what inspires me regarding hardware. Maybe I'm a little bit eccentric because I don't use hardware or anything. I just use my laptop, but I admire people that use hardware to create minimalistic textures.  On the other hand, my studio is filled with bass traps and has two sets of speakers and my laptop.

How do you engage with the wider electronic community? Are there any other artists you are in touch with and you exchange ideas? 
I'm a bit of an introvert and my schedule is packed. I have a day job and two kids and I try to exercise a little. I don't go clubbing or anything like that. So in recent years, I don't often go out and meet people, but I enjoy talking with my old friends online, discussing audio mixing techniques or exchanging valuable feedback for our work-in-progress music.  Also great to meet new people on discord and discover their music, for example. I discovered some very interesting artists there and have a chat with them sometimes. So I meet people online, mostly (laughs).

What was one of the artists you discovered and you say, wow, this touches me?
Yeah, I really like Loscil’s and Lawrence English’s “Colours of Air” and also previous work by Loscil. It's so minimalistic and yet so elegant!  Then I’ve also been listening to “NOT TiGHT”  by DOMi  & JD Beck. It's completely different, fast jazz by young kids. I really admire them. It's the complete opposite of minimalism, though.

It’s a question we ask the artists because many musicians fall off the radar. Nowadays, everything is algorithms and social media. There's so much talent that is maybe not so visible to the outside and you are only able to find out via communities and sharing. 
Absolutely. I don't agree with the algorithms. They're usually genre operated or concentrate on genres. I like quality music and it's not about the categories. Some things, you can't describe them, but it's a certain feeling, something that touches me. Music that deeply touches my soul or heart. That's not possible for algorithms to find out. It can only show you what type of music it is or if it's popular. Music is not about that for me, it is about human emotions and human connection and trying to make sense of the world or your inner world. Spotify is probably the leader of this algorithm revolution if you can call it like that and I am not sure about it. Of course, if you listen to music for a long time with an algorithm, you're bound to find something really nice. But yeah, there is just something wrong there for me. I'm, of course, a bit old school. I like long albums and I don't listen to playlists. When growing up, we bought CDs and listened to the CDs again and again. I'm probably just affected by my upbringing in that sense. Not saying it's wrong to listen to playlists. It just doesn't work for me.

I wonder to what extent an artist can free themselves from the music industry's development. When producing something, is it possible to completely detach yourself from concerns like whether the album will be successful or how it will perform? It's a common topic for many artists and living in an algorithm-driven environment can be burdensome. How do you deal with these thoughts?
I have a day job. That's how I deal with it. I don't think about these things and I don't want to worry about whether it’ll make money or not. I just really want to create something very nice. I'm not financially dependent on my music, but it is my passion and I spend a lot of time on music. During Covid, I lost my job as a software developer. I was working at a startup and they just had to lay people off because there was no one using the product for a while. I was so glad, that I lost my job because then I had an excuse to just work on music. And that's the artist in me that is just:  all right, now I work on music. Financially it didn't work in the long run. Then I took a new job and I started working at 60% and working on my album for two days a week.  I'm always really glad when I get the chance to work on music. There are things I just don't like, I don't like how Spotify works or how little they pay the artists.  That’s why I don't want to play by their rules and rather want to make long albums that flow together. The tracks flow together and I don't want to make music that is more likely to be selected by playlists. I want to make music that I like, not the algorithms. Related to that, I think also creating music for myself is better than trying to guess what other people might like because you never really know exactly what others are thinking or feeling. In the end, I always hope others will like it, of course.

We talked earlier about when music touches the heart.  What's the musical science behind it? What are the elements that make people deeply connect to this music in such an emotional way? The magic ingredient that makes people's hearts connect to it. 
Oh, that's a really difficult question. Not really sure. I would say that music needs to have a sort of micro tension. It can't all be completely in harmony in the way of the rhythm, notes, texture and all that. It needs to have a nice tension inside. That's one of the things that make music interesting. if there are some opposing elements. It's a difficult question, but a very interesting one. But I think that some tension in the music is important because that sort of reflects the human condition existing in the world - there's always some conflict within yourself or with other people or with the system or even with the weather.

Thank you. There are artists in that, to mention Traumprinz here as an example.  He is one of the artists where listeners say, oh, that is an individual that can translate that melancholy, the metaphorical “search for home” very well into music. The same has been said about Yagya as well. I was wondering if it is a certain pad, arrangement or certain pace? Most likely a little bit of magic plays a role, too.
Yeah, it's hard to say in words. I always imagine if it sort of clicks in my heart, but it doesn't translate to words exactly. If you could translate it into words though, you could probably create a recipe or algorithm to create these things. And then it probably wouldn't be very interesting because it would be just overflowing with these things and people would start creating something else. 

“Faded Photographs” was released on your own sublabel SPA via DELSIN. Over the years it seems you have developed a very good, trustworthy relationship with Delsin.
Absolutely. I like working with them; they're always good at communicating, although we never met in person. I sent them a demo maybe 10 years ago, and they said, sorry, it doesn't really fit on Delsin. But then I sent them my next album, “Sleepygirls”. They liked this one and released it. That is what makes them so great - they are always willing to give their own honest opinion. I can always trust that they're doing their best to create a beautiful release and they're very good at their job. They of course created the Small Plastic Animals sub-label that is releasing this album and two previous ones, and that's really, really nice of them to trust me with releasing stuff that I like. Because sometimes when you're releasing on labels, they say, oh no, you have to make it more techno, we want techno here.  For SPA, I just say, let's create alternate dimension dream pop or something that hasn't been done before. That's what creating something is about!  When I started making music in my early teens, I didn't know how to make music and created something almost random and I was like, oh, this is so great, Dad, Mom, come listen to this! Due to my lack of technical and musical knowledge, I often created something different from what I heard in other music but it was nice. So now, I'm simply chasing that same feeling to create something kind of similar but different. 

Where do you see Small Plastic Animals going? Do you already think about the magic Number 10? 
Yes, I have some plans and I'm working on new stuff, but it's uncomfortable for me to say more. If I release the idea into the world, it's sort of concrete. I like changing ideas. So to be saying it, it's just uncomfortable for me when I'm creating stuff. 

Is there anything that is important to you and that you want to mention with regard to “Faded Photographs”? 
I really like the artwork that Richard Ortiz did for the album, and I think it's very important to create whole packages for the people that buy the vinyl. It’s important to me that they see that somethat, some care has been put into every part. That’s why the artwork should be beautiful and I'm extremely happy with how it turned out. I'm very grateful for all the people that participated in this album, I couldn't have done it without them. They created such a beautiful and vast work. If I did it only all by myself it would lack dimension.  Adding new people to the project, just expands the universe it lives in.

Everybody put their best effort into this and helped me to create such a nice thing. I mean, I think it's nice now!  I'm happy with it. I'm not sure how people will react, but I can't say how people should react. Someone was telling me about,  if someone writes a book and the reader interpreted its meaning completely different from the writer, it doesn't mean the reader is wrong. This is true for music as well, that people when they get the music, it's no longer for me to say what they should experience.  I do hope that people will like it, though!

My hope is that I managed to create some delicate emotions like the small hairs on the back of your hand that you have to touch very lightly in order to feel. Sometimes you hear something and it just blows you completely away, but then you listen to it three times and you get tired of it, it's not what I am trying to do. I try to create something that people can listen to a few times. That's my dream. 

I can say in my case, it worked!  In preparation for the interview, I listened to this album multiple times a day and in different circumstances, while walking in the park, on my headphones while laying down… The album grew on me over time and it became a good friend. To me, it also feels timeless. 
Yeah, that's where the alternate dimension comes in again!