The Synth-Punk Icelandic trio Kælan Mikla on writing and performing their Ethereal Music in the Post-Pandemic World
October 25th 2022, I saw Kælan Mikla perform on a cold wet night at the Star Theatre in downtown Portland, Oregon. I’d been continuously listening to their latest album so I knew was in for something special, but I was at a loss for words to describe just how mesmerizing it was seeing these young women from Reykjavik Iceland command the stage and deliver a performance so compelling that it sent a cold shiver down the spine of every person in attendance.
When my friend Marilyn asked if I wanted to interview with them, I was not exactly prepared, but I also wasn’t about to let this opportunity slip away either. I knew they were elusive, private, and seldom spoke to the music press, that was their thing. To my surprise, they not only agreed to talk to me, but were incredibly sweet, candid, and open to discuss just about anything I could think to ask them. I highly recommend listening to Undir Köldum Norðurljósum, their latest release out with Artoffact Records, while sitting back and reading about their beliefs, experiences, and writing and performing their ethereal music in the post-pandemic world. Thanks to Marilyn and Cat for their assistance, as well as Sandy Holmes for the amazing live photographs.
Kælan Mikla live at the Star Theatre in downtown Portland, Oregon on October 25th 2022
An in-depth interview
First off, let's get your names and what each of you do in Kælan Mikla.
Sólveig Matthildur: I’m Sólveig Matthildur and I play the synths and drums.
Margrét Rósa: I’m Margrét Rósa and I play the bass guitar and I also sing backing vocals.
Laufey Soffía: I am Laufey Soffía and I am the main vocalist.
To get the ball rolling I’d like to ask how your tour has been going? You have twenty-seven dates across the US and Canada respectively and are covering a large chunk of the continent. How does playing over here compare to Europe and what have your experiences and reception been thus far?
LS: The tour thus far has been a fun experience, the US is so incredibly diverse and at times we find some places to be extremely dystopian, whilst other places we find really beautiful. I guess it's hard to contextualise considering how varied each state is across the whole continent.
SM: It's hard to describe just one thing about the US.
“[Touring in the US is] so much different from touring within Europe, because you’re usually driving around three or so hours from place to place. Thus far we finish up playing a show, pack everything as quickly as we can to get back on the road, then we drive up to eight hours so we can be on time for the soundcheck the following day. ”
MR: It's so much different from touring within Europe, because you're usually driving around three or so hours from place to place, but here you’re covering a lot further distance between cities which doesn’t leave us much time to really experience each location. Thus far we finish up playing a show, pack everything as quickly as we can to get back on the road, then we drive up to eight hours so we can be on time for the soundcheck the following day.
LS: I mean, it's as if everything is so much bigger than what we're used to. It’s such a big country.
SM: When I used to think of America, I used to think of this idealised version of it kind of like what you see in the movies. When we started our first US tour in 2019, we ended up playing quite a few festivals that made up the bulk of our schedule, but this time around, we’re able to experience just how diverse and beautiful parts of the country are. I've been trying to capture on my phone one photo representing each state that I'm in during the tour, so I'm seeing the difference, especially because we’re playing dates that aren’t just on the East/West coast. It's crazy how beautiful it is, that their is so many amazing people who show up to see us play our music, but I also feel in many ways what is going on here politically is really fucked up.
“I think the nature in America is gorgeous, but I feel like this society is so dystopian... with socio-political turmoil and gun culture like this. It’s horrible.”
LS: Yeah, it's true. When I think about Europe, I feel it's like a Disney movie in comparison to here. I think the nature in America is gorgeous, but I feel like this society is so dystopian. That it is so very different from what we grew up with. In Europe and especially Iceland, which is such a small peaceful country, to be confronted with socio-political turmoil and gun culture like this. It's horrible.
Kælan Mikla live
I can relate having been born in Australia and moved to the United States. That is something that was quite a culture shock to me as well when I first came out here back in 2013. To further expand on what you just mentioned, I noticed that you recently made social media posts that have been encouraging people to go out and vote in the midterm elections here in the US. Is there a particular issue or position that you’re collectively passionate about that you would hope resonates with your listeners?
MR: We never set out to be political with our music, but we want to encourage our listeners to vote, we hope that people that show up to our concerts would vote for similar ideals that we have.
SM: We are not ashamed to say that we stand for Black Lives Matter, we stand for feminism, we stand for animal rights, we stand for abortion rights and that a women’s choice with what she does with her body is her own. We take a common-sense approach to these issues when it comes to affecting public policy, and I think that our music transcends these values, because we would be stating the obvious otherwise.
LS: We got this idea from our driver who was in contact with headcount (headcount.org). We thought it was a beautiful idea to encourage people to sign up because we think and we hope that the people who are coming to our shows are people with similar ideologies, and they would be on the same page as us. We abhor violence and things of that nature, we just want peace and happiness. We hope that the people who come to our shows sign up to vote and in turn vote for the right thing, because if they don't, then the other side is going to win.
Well you're certainly in the right place considering Portland is one of the more left leaning cities in the United States and I'm certain you've probably heard all over the news that we care about these issues very seriously irrespective of which political party is in power. Just to back track a second, you mentioned animal rights. Are all three of you vegan?
LS: We're all vegan, and most of our crew is, our merch girl is vegan, our roadie is vegan, our stage hand is vegan as well.
On touring and playing live
What kind of foods have you had whilst you're out on the road? Have you found it easily accessible to get vegan food here or not so much?
MR: It sucks being on the road and being vegan.
LS: We had a lot of taco bell (laughs), it's not the most ethical thing to do but there are limited options in some parts of the country. However we have noticed there are options here that we do not have in Europe, like extremely realistic vegan meat substitutes. So yeah, we've been trying out a variety of different foods and tonight we had some amazing vegan pizza. We like to try out the vegan places in every city we go to.
Your sound has grown a lot from the self-titled album which had a very stripped down almost synth punk vibe to it. The follow up Nótt Eftir Nótt, was a lot more nuanced with a heavy darkwave influence, and finally your most recent release Undir Köldum Norðurljósum, which I reviewed in Auxiliary, is a huge leap towards ethereal wave similar to Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance. How have your influences contributed to the development of your sound?
MR: It's really hard to say, we all have really different tastes in music. I can't really name a favorite band as we draw influence across a broad spectrum of artists and I think that's where our music is kind of unique, because we have so many different influences. Ultimately what really inspires us in making music is just feelings, nature, surroundings, our friendship, and emotions. We don't really intend to sound like anything specific. We just make what we want to make, what we feel like in the moment.
Let me approach this a different way, is there anyone in particular you would be excited to discover was a fan of your music?
LS: I guess we would all say Robert Smith, but it already happened!
I heard about this, that is quite the endorsement. How did this come about?
LS: When we played Pasadena and Los Angeles at the Rosebowl arena, on this particular occasion, he was on the sideline watching us the whole time. I was so happy that I didn't notice him, because I would have freaked out (laughs). During our set, the owner of our label took a photo of Robert Smith watching us from the stage which I saw afterwards. To my surprise when we walked offstage, he came to greet us, and he enjoyed our music so much that he ended up booking us on two other occasions. So I think that he's the one person that the three of us have the most in common. All of us love The Cure, we are big fans of Robert Smith. So it was very beautiful that he liked our music, and an honor that he wanted to book us a few times.
Kælan Mikla live
You just finished up playing at Substance festival in Los Angeles that had a monumentally impressive lineup of recent goth, post-punk, darkwave and dream pop artists from all over the world, were there any artists that made an impression on you?
SM: For me, well I wish I could have seen Kitten and the Hacker on Saturday [October 22nd 2022], but we had a show in San Francisco that day.
LS: For me, my favorite band that I saw was The Chameleons. I loved one of the bands that played earlier in the night. I believe it was Adam Miller, really good, a bit shoegaze post punk style, it was very nice.
MR: I'm just gonna throw around kind of a random one that I just discovered, like three months ago when I was in Canada; Black Plague. I saw them play live and they were so cool. Shout out.
Are there any support bands that have been standouts that didn’t appear at Substance that you've taken a liking to on this tour?
SM: The band Xibling who opened tonight. They blew me away.
LS: They were in my opinion, the best local act that we had opening thus far. We’ve been touring with Kanga this time around, and we think she's incredible. But as far as bands we’ve played with on the road, I think Xibling was the best one thus far.
What are the forthcoming plans for Kælan Mikla? Do you have plans for a new record in the not too distant future?
LS: We plan on releasing something new in 2023, most likely a single before we go on tour with Ville Valo in the spring. I think from there we will get on to writing an album for release in 2024.
Will that be on Artoffact Records?
SM: Yeah! We're on contract with them and we really like them. They have treated us amazingly.
There's quite a few upstanding artists on that label, Kanga obviously being one as well as Spectres from Canada, whom I've been in contact with for what feels like well over 10 years now. How did the relationship with Artoffact come about? You were originally on Fabrika records from memory…
LS: It's like a family. We have a very close friendship with Artoffact. I think we would prefer to be on that kind of label instead of something extremely big where you're just one in a million you know?
SM: We have gotten proposals from very big labels wanting to sign us, but we feel really comfortable having a smaller label that treats us really well, and pays a lot of attention to us and understands our needs. It’s nice to not feel like one in a million and that's what makes it much more worthwhile in my opinion. We have a beautiful connection with Artoffact, and we just really enjoy being able to work with them.
LS: Jacek [owner of Artoffact] lives in Iceland, he actually discovered us from our first album we ever made, which was self released, but he wanted to re-release it because we put it out in limited quantities on cassette. Our first vinyl release was with Fabrika records from Greece and we are still very close with them. When he got in touch with us, we decided to let him re-release our first album and we became incredibly good friends. We then realized how nice it was to have someone in our own country that was not just a label boss, but who we could just visit and hang out with. That kind of relationship with someone who is invested in your music made it all the more easier to sign a contract to release the third album with him as well as the fourth album.
SM: We're super happy with Jacek, he re-released our first albums and went above and beyond for us, definitely one of our best friends. He lives in the countryside of Iceland and we’ll just go visit him and make pizza and have a good time. [laughs]
I'm sure the autonomy that comes with being on a smaller label and not having to adhere to any kind of recording obligations and time restraints makes for an ideal partnership.
SM: They're really understanding and they let us have our own creative direction.
MR: When we had talked to some labels in the [Backture] past, they would usually want us to adhere to a specific sound, and we never want to limit ourselves to a specific sound. We want to be able to experiment with shoegaze, some black metal elements, dark wave, synth wave, post punk or dark pop. We want to be able to blend all of these things together, and we’ve had labels tell us that this doesn't fit into their criteria of what they’re looking for. We want to have the freedom to create music when it comes to us, because you never know what spark of inspiration comes to you in the moment.
LS: We have never wanted to be pigeonholed into some sort of genre.
MR: We don't even know how to actually label our own music because we love to try all manner of different things and see where it takes us. In the writing process, maybe it's amazing, maybe it's not working out so well, and maybe we can just play around to see if it works. We don't care whether or not it's selling, we're just gonna keep doing what we want to do.
SM: Maybe we're gonna do a witch house album, or now we're gonna do a folk album, it doesn't matter. We just go with our direction, wherever it takes us and see what happens. Kælan Mikla is fluid, it can become whatever we want it to be.
My final question touches on a bit of your spiritual beliefs, you speak a lot about witchcraft in your lyrics and it's communicated through your aesthetics, do you identify with a left hand path or right hand path when it comes to magic? Or is the concept of witchcraft utilized as a means to communicate a deeper meaning to your music?
LS: It’s our path.
“We’re not in any kind of witches coven. It’s more representative of the magic that we make with the three of us together, what happens through our music on stage is our magic, and it’s not part of any religion.”
SM: We're not in any kind of witches coven. It's more representative of the magic that we make with the three of us together, what happens through our music on stage is our magic, and it's not part of any religion.
MR: Kælan Mikla, it's a character featured in the famous cartoon the Moomins, and she is a beautiful winter creature and she brings the winter into the Moomin Valley, and she's the only faithful creature. If you look into her eyes, you freeze to death. And that's the only death that ever happens in the Moomin series. She's a very beautiful, strong femme fatal character and we feel like Kælan Mikla, is the character we summon when all three of us are together. It's like the strong winter ice woman. Total femme fatale. You cannot fuck with her, and that's what we are. So when it comes to our witchcraft, we don't follow any specific path. We work together and we follow our own path.
Well I can definitely say you brought the winter weather with you, your performance this evening alone gave me chills, phenomenal performance.
LS: You’re Welcome!
by Luke Leprosy
Luke Leprosy is a self-described punk, dog parent, and record lover based in Portland, Oregon. FOLLOW
This article was originally published in our Spring/Summer 2023 Issue
For further reading… browse more of our online music articles.