Repress!
Bjarki leads a pack of international artists who in the past few years have taken a hauntological approach to re-moulding the scents of breakbeat, rave, jungle, trance and IDM into sounds that are entirely their own. Already this year he began his own label bbbbbb with artistic sparring partner Johnny Chrome Silver, released under new alias Cucumb45, performed his new live show at clubs and festivals from Mutek ES and Peacock to Printworks, and recently announced a US tour for July. TRP015 finds Bjarki in typical, monstrous, floor slaying form with four trance leaning tracks that have proved an inspiration for Nina Kraviz’s DJ sets over the past year. Bjarki takes key aspects of trance and takes it for a headspin into the unknown - mangled percussion, disorienting voices, unravelling textural layers, sub aquatic bass frequencies and intense melodies. All make for a uniquely irreverent take on a much maligned genre that most of us secretly adore.. More

Repress!
Big main room techno banger by Bjarki with catchy Dj Deeon sample. Flip side is a dreamy track. More

The latest release from Bjarki Runar’s bbbbbb label sees Bjarki delving back into his vast archives and shines a light on a bizarre detour during the early days of the label that involved a peculiar commission from the Icelandic state. More

Bjarki closes an epic year of releases on ???? with a genre defying 12” harking back to the misty days of rave and acid house. The frenetic ‘Fresh Jive’ features Bjarki’s trademark ethereal pads, metallic percussion and a resonant bass melody to create the perfect dancefloor ear-worm. ‘Genat 8’ broods as it builds with vocal snips and jittery percussion, heavy bass and moody soundscapes. It’s an essential vinyl cut that will further define the Icelandic artists unique reworking of classic dancefloor elements into his own signature sound More

Æ is the third part of Bjarki triptych of LPs to be released this year. Æ is a particularly Icelandic form, pronounced “I” in English; Bjarki thinks it just looks good. Here it is a selection of music that is at its core quite simple, with restrained instrumentation, made on hardware and features a selection of older works and the most recent produced just weeks ago. Bjarki is from Iceland. Born and raised. Despite the fact that Bjarki is known for making extremely powerful dance floor tracks he doesn’t seem to belong to any particular genre. Something this triptych of LPs demonstrates very well. His music is at times cinematic and there’s a story behind each track. Bjarki’s music always has something to do with him personally, but he’d rather the listener lose themselves in the music than pay much attention to the man behind them. Either on a record or to one of his ever evolving live sets. More

Lefhanded Fuqs is the second of Bjarki triptych of LP’s to be released this year. Follow the stunning ‘?’ released in June this year, Lefhanded Fuqs and Æ are being released over the coming months and represent a snapshot of his archive, selected by Nina Kraviz for Trip. The tracks were produced months ago, years ago, or in the case of the last track just a couple of weeks ago. What began with 30 tracks are now 41. The three LPs aren’t albums in the traditional sense - the concept being to release the contents of his burgeoning hard drives. The music might fit together like an album, but Bjarki doesn’t see it that way. It’s essentially an archive that sounds like an album but none of the music was made with this in mind. Lefhanded Fugs is released this September to feverish anticipation. Whilst naming one of the tracks that he made with a left hand for the LP, Bjarki was so left-handed that he completely misspelled it. But in honour of all the left-handed people making mistakes because of tools made only for right-handed people, he decided to keep it. The LP contains the more experimental material from the archive, including one the first film scores he produced several years ago for a story he wrote himself. Bjarki is from Iceland. Born and raised. Despite the fact that Bjarki is known for making extremely powerful dance floor tracks he doesn’t seem to belong to any particular genre. Something this triptych of LPs demonstrates very well. His music is at times cinematic and there’s a story behind each track. Bjarki’s music always has something to do with him personally, but he’d rather the listener lose themselves in the music than pay much attention to the man behind them. Either on a record or to one of his ever evolving live sets
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