We speak to Margrét Ran, founder and lead vocalist of dreamy Icelandic band Vök, about writing in English, working around the music industry, and that feeling you get from just being on stage.
“It’s almost like breathing – like I’m missing this adrenaline kick. I think when you’re a musician, and you’ve gone on stage, you become an adrenaline junkie in a way. You get such a euphoric rush out of it, and you can live off this rush for weeks.”
The other side of the coin is, of course, surviving without that rush. Margrét Ran Magnúsdóttir, founder and lead vocalist of Icelandic band Vök, is not alone in having coped with the absence of live music for what has now been the best part of two years. But in Vök’s genre of music – a wonderful blend of dream pop and electronic – the reliance on live performances is even greater. This is a band whose music, from creation to recording to performance, is largely shaped by the final product: live shows.
“Sometimes, even when you’re writing music,” Margrét continues, “you get this kick out of thinking, I’m going to play this song live and it’s gonna be so much fun, you know? I’m gonna change the tempo a little bit – it’ll be great live like that. [Live music] plays a massive part, for me at least, in writing music. Life is just better when you can play live music.”
It hasn’t been two years entirely separated from fans. Margrét and Vök have been able to play sporadically during that time, including travelling to Canada and playing in Toronto early last December. At best, however, it’s been stop-start. “Everything kind of went to shit again around Christmas. It’s always so weird. When you’ve not played for a couple of months, you’re just like, Oh my God. What am I doing? I don’t know how to do this. It’s such a weird feeling. You really start to doubt yourself.”
Over the years, the band’s line-up has changed. With its inception in 2013, Vök began as a duo. They then grew to as many as four, before now presently consisting of three. On top of Margrét, Einar Hrafn Stefánsson plays bass, as well producing and mixing, whilst Bergur Einar Dagbjartsson is on the drums.
In 2022, the trio behind Vök are hoping to return a degree of normality. They’re scheduled to go back out on tour later this month and, already this year, the band have released two singles. The track ‘Stadium’ arrived in January, before last week’s release, ‘Lose Control.’ In the business Vök are in, singles are where the streaming numbers really come from.
“We’re just working around the music industry,” Margrét explains. Typically, the band release 80 or 90 per cent of any album or EP in singles beforehand. “If you look at albums, if you look at the numbers on albums on Spotify, you can see that the singles have so much more listeners. The album tracks have nothing. I mean, it’s a bit depressing, but I guess you have to work around it.”
View this post on Instagram
Despite that reality, Margrét and Vök still work towards longer projects. “We always try to make it around a whole concept. It’s so nice to have something that feels like a movie or a story or something like that.” Their latest project was last year’s Feeding on a Tragedy. It was an introspective record, focusing on Margrét in particular, as the band “emphasised creating this character around my past, so all the songs can make sense together.”
These songs are sung, and stories told, in English. But that hasn’t always been the case. “When I started the band, I wrote in Icelandic and English, but it’s so much harder to write in Icelandic. It just comes more naturally for me to write in English. Icelandic is my first language, it’s weird – I think it’s because the words are so harsh.”
Unlike certain genres, where lyrics are one of the key focuses of the song, in Vök’s music they are more of an accompaniment to the production. Only recently has Margrét found these lyrics easier to write. “I’ve always had a weird relationship with lyrics. Just recently, I’ve come to enjoy lyrics, but before it wasn’t my strong suit.
“I guess, with ageing, they’ve become more important. Still, I really have to be in a certain mood to write. It comes more naturally for me to just make the music itself. I’m a producer.”
