Kira Kira (IS)

KIRA KIRA —scream the seagulls. You stand on a beach with black stone rumble in your hands. Kira Kira—the sand grounds. You watch the wash of November storm waves against the hard-knocked starboard side of the island. The wind hums in the corners of the isolated hut. A subtle whish of dust from the curtains. Kira Kira—screeks the door. You play a dusty note on the harmonium. Touch the pedals. Sing a dry flower note. Chants turn into rants. Black sand in an instrument, the harmonium full of storm water. Noise upon noise. Unpredictable. Kira Kira —capricious
Matti Pentikäinen 2010

An unpredictable dialogue of electro-acoustic pranksterism and innocent melodic pop is at the heart of Our Map to the Monster Olympics, the new LP from this curious Icelandic artist. Picking up where we left off on her 2006 LP Skotta, Our Map to the Monster Olympics is a twisting, sometimes terrifying, often glorious and touching kaleidoscope of a record. Swarms of fragmented voices mouth melodies through home made microphones while contact-mic’ed kalimba’s fight for breath in seas of beautifully damaged technicolor, granulated shotgun beats fire from sniper positions in foreboding atmospheres- AND YET armies of glockenspiels, brass and casio’s remind us that everything will, in fact, be ok- Since 1999 Kira has been a constant enigma- extremely hard to define and almost impossible to anticipate.

As a founding member of Icelandic art collective Kitchen Motors, audio/visual artist Kira Kira has been a pivotal figure in contemporary Icelandic music. She has composed music extensively for theatre, dance and film and created a myriad of sound and video installations everywhere from Beijing to New York. Taking a particular interest in blurring the lines of visual and performing arts Kira has appeared in all kinds of curious venues; in church towers, gallery spaces, abandoned prisons, croatian breweries and various other curious places, creating lasting images of singing black holes, dueling smoke machines, kite symphonies and exploding cassette tapes across the globe.
Ben Frost 2008