Fufanu – The Dialogue Series

Physical package of all three EPs labelled ‘The Dialogue Series’, released on single 12″ black vinyl and CD, 19 October 2018.

Named “Iceland’s most exciting young band” by Pitchfork after the release of their celebrated sophomore LP Sports in 2017, enigmatic trio Fufanu released this series of EPs throughout 2018; each one is an exercise in exploring their multiple sonic personalities, from motorik and post-punk to alt-techno, to woozy avant-garde electronica. 

After a long stint touring, the band returned to Iceland with a bag of demos written at different junctures on the road, which were purposefully created with no regard for a unified sound. They were eager to release the tracks into the world as and when they were written, looking to capture the sense of urgency with which the songs were formed. However, they asked MC, DJ and producer Alap Momin to listen to the demos and before they knew it, he was on a flight from Harlem to Iceland to work with the band. The result of his input only served to highlight their desire for a distinctive exploration of genres between each record. Kaktus laughs: “Three Icelandic techno-rockers brought the Harlem club scene to their studio in Iceland – it was a life-changing week.

“It is a dialogue between musicians with different backgrounds, different approaches and different live styles, but we all have the same excitement about going into a new field of sounds. For example, we did cosmiche / motorik but worked it like hip hop, and did pop like it was techno and also the other way around. Musically, the outcome goes from being deep and drugged, to fast and harsh, with heartfelt ballads in the middle.”

The trio don’t care for being placed neatly into a box, which has never been more evident in their career to date as it is throughout each of these three EPs. Lead singer Kaktus Einarsson comments: “What is great about the creative workflow of Fufanu is that we’ve never just stopped. We’ve never hit a sound that we’re going to stick with, it has always been about discovering what it is we want to make during each moment, and to just keep on exploring.

“There’s this crazy need for people to always categorize everything. Life isn’t just on or off, good or bad – it’s everything in the middle.”

Tracklist:
1. Labels
2. Listen To Me
3. Hourglass
4. Chop Chop
5. Pick It Up
6. Typical Critical
7. One Too Many
8. Crystal & Gold
9. Nine Twelve
10. My New Trigger