Before the World Knew Quarashi

Long before international tours, record deals and JINX, there was Sölvi Blöndal, a drum kit, an old organ and an Akai sampler.

Sölvi, Quarashi's drummer, producer and sound architect, had been making music in his garage, armed with little more than primitive equipment and an unreasonable amount of ambition. During the winter of 1995–96, he began putting together the tracks that would eventually become some of Quarashi's earliest recordings: “Beam Me Up,” “Speedo,” “Switchstance” and “Lone Rangers.” At one point he was asked to create a song for his college annual release for which he wrote “2001”.

These weren't polished studio productions. They were experiments, raw, strange, energetic pieces of music being assembled in a Reykjavík garage before anyone had any idea what they might become.

Sölvi had already begun working with Hössi. The earliest version of “Beam Me Up” featured Hössi doing both the singing and rapping himself. That recording would later appear on a Lax Records vinyl release in 1998, preserved like a little time capsule from the days when Quarashi was still only an idea taking shape.

For a while, however, Hössi stepped away from music and turned his attention to school and other things. Sölvi, meanwhile, kept going, making rap and dance music while, according to the wonderfully eccentric history of the band

And then came Steini.

The original tracks Sölvi had been making weren't necessarily intended to have vocals at all. They were supposed to be instrumentals.

Then, sometime in early 1996, Sölvi met Steini better known as Stoney and the plan changed.

Exactly how they met depends on which version of the story you believe.

One account has Sölvi walking through downtown Reykjavík and spotting Steini performing on stage at Ingólfstorg, a Reykjavík town square and the main hangout for skaters in town.. Another says they had worked together at a skate park. And perhaps the most gloriously Quarashi version of events involves Sölvi discovering Steini drunk underneath some stairs at a party.

Whatever actually happened, the important part is that the two started talking.

They talked about music. They talked about rap. And they talked about how conspicuously absent rap music was from Iceland's music scene.

So, naturally, they decided to do something about it.

Steini had already been writing rap lyrics for years and had performed on stage a handful of times. Sölvi invited him back to the garage, put on some of the tracks he had been working on, and handed him a microphone.

Steini started rapping.

From that moment, in that cramped Reykjavík garage, Quarashi was born.

That summer, Sölvi and Steini began experimenting with the songs that would eventually become Switchstance.

By September 1996, Sölvi, Steini and audio engineer Hrannar Ingimarsson were recording the EP in Sölvi's garage.

It was hardly a glamorous recording environment. The equipment was primitive. The microphones were bad. The garage was freezing. The air wasn't exactly ideal. Steini became hoarse and sick. Sölvi came down with the flu.

But somehow, they kept going.

During the sessions, Sölvi called his old friend and former collaborator Hössi and asked him to come by and help with the recording which he did.

During the production the guy had decided they would all use MC names instead of their own but the only one who had a name was Steini with MC Quarashi, in the end the name was used for the band as a whole and they dropped the MC idea.

By the end of October, Sölvi, Hössi and Steini had finished Switchstance.

Lax Records, the record company Sölvi had founded himself, pressed just 500 copies of the EP.

They picked them up at the local airport and took them home. Sölvi handed a few CD’s out to record stores and radio station, not hoping for much and the rest of the boxes were promptly stashed underneath Sölvi's bed.

There was no grand expectation of fame. No international marketing campaign. No carefully calculated rollout.

Just 500 CDs and the very real possibility that they might be stuck with all of them.

Then the phone rang, it was a record store.

Sölvi was asked to bring the remaining copies of Switchstance as the few of them they were given had sold out in a blur.

Suddenly, everyone wanted Quarashi.

Switchstance had completely sold out.

Almost overnight, the little EP created in a freezing Reykjavík garage had become a record people had to have. It brought a sound to the Reykjavík music scene that had been sorely missing until now.

Today, original copies of Switchstance are notoriously difficult to find, so much so that even some of the band's own members reportedly don't even have one.

There is even a rumour that Hössi sold his copy for beer.

Honestly, if that's true, it may be the most Quarashi thing imaginable.

The success of Switchstance made one thing very clear: Quarashi wasn't a garage experiment anymore.

The band returned to the studio, this time working at Bobbafett and NTOV instead of the garage and began recording a full-length

From September 1996 through September 1997, Quarashi built 16 tracks what would become their first full-length album.

On October 13th 1997, Quarashi was released through Lax Records, with 6,000 copies pressed.

Fans would affectionately come to call it “The Egg Album” due to its cover featuring an egg as its standout artwork.

Quarashi the album was extremely well received both by critics and fans with all noting the fresh sound it brought to the Icelandic scene and there was no denying that Quarashi the band was now a “real” band. And the story was just getting bigger.

After the album, the members temporarily went their separate ways. Sölvi took six months off to backpack through South America. Hössi went to the University of Iceland. Steini headed to the United States.

But Quarashi wasn't finished.

They returned to work and began creating Xeneizes, released in September 1999.

Then came a moment that would change everything.

Quarashi were scouted at the very first Iceland Airwaves festival by music giant EMI, giving them something they had never quite had before, the possibility of actually making a living from their music. They were paid musicians now.

Through EMI they were contacted and offered the opportunity to go to America for 3 months to record new music and see what would happen. They came back with new experiences, new music and the beginnings of something much bigger.

But the road to releasing it was, unfortunately, anything but straightforward.

Their new record couldn't be released immediately, and their record company, Time Bomb, eventually sold the band's contract to Columbia Records. Originally slated for a 2001 release date the issues with their lables pushed their album back a year, now lining it up for an april 2002 release date.

The waiting game was not exactly the band's favourite part of the process.

While they waited for the label to work things out they realised sitting around doing nothing would not make the wait any easier so Sölvi and Hössi kept creating.

Director Bergur Þór Ingólfsson was preparing a stage production based on Halldór Laxness' Kristnihald undir Jökli and needed music to bring the production together, he got in touch with Sölvi and Hössi, asking them if creating a soundtrack was something they would be interested in.

They decided to do it and the final result was released on an album with the same name “Kristinhald undir Jökli”

Meanwhile, the record everyone was waiting for was still looming.

Finally, on April 9th 2002, it arrived.

JINX.

Quarashi's first internationally released album.

And this time, the little Icelandic band that had started in a garage wasn't simply making noise at home. They were stepping onto the international stage.

What followed was a massive worldwide tour — the kind of tour that turns a band from something you discovered into something you remember. Tour buses, truck stops, long days and long nights. Not exactly glamorous but they did it for the music and for the fans.

For many fans, JINX became the Quarashi record. The first they heard of the 4 piece band from an isolated island in the north Atlantic. The Quarashi sound was unique and unmistakable, no matter if they heard it on a movie soundtrack, a video game or simply at their local hangout, the band spoke to more than just Icelandic people, it spoke through a shared feeling of the times in the early 2000’s, a get up, get out and just do it on your own merit.

But every great ride eventually reaches a turn in the road.

By the end of the JINX tour, it had become clear that one of the band's founding members, Hössi, was ready to leave.

He wanted to return to Iceland and finish his studies in Icelandic at the University of Iceland.

So just before Christmas 2002, he left the band.

On January 3, 2003, it was officially announced.

For fans, it was devastating.

Quarashi had that unspeakable force about them and it had always felt like the combination of these particular personalities, four voices, strange but undeniable chemistry, one unmistakable sound. Suddenly, one of the people at the heart of it was gone.

The band disappeared from view for around six months.

Then they came back swinging.

Quarashi released “Mess It Up,” a collaboration with rapper Opee.

It became a massive hit in Iceland almost overnight and became one of the most popular song of 2003 but something was still missing.

The line-up didn't quite feel complete.

Then, in the autumn of 2003, came another announcement:

They had found their new member.

Tiny, Egill Ólafur Thorarensen, was officially joining Quarashi.

The new lineup wasted no time, they released “Race City” and headed to Japan in January 2004.

Their final album, Guerilla Disco, followed, released in Iceland and as a special edition in Japan, where many of Quarashi’s most devoted fans came from.

The record was well received by the band's loyal fans and even those who had their doubts on whether the new line-up would work found something in it to enjoy. Quarashi was back on the performance scene with appearances around Iceland and to their biggest crowds in Japan.

The new chapter with Tiny on board was a success but it never quite captured the international impact of JINX.

And then, almost as quickly as it had begun, the ride was over.

Quarashi disbanded in the months that followed.

For fans, it was a devastating ending to an extraordinary journey, because Quarashi had never been just another Icelandic band.

They were a product of a very particular time and place a bunch of young guys making strange, aggressive, addictive music in a Reykjavík garage with questionable microphones and absolutely no reason to believe that the rest of the world was listening. They captured the vibe of Reykjavík in the 90’s perfectly and with it came a fan base that got it.

In Iceland, for the fans it wasn’t cool to say that you were a passionate fan of a band and for the bands it wasn’t cool to be seen as trying to “make it big”. But the band took their music seriously and for that reason the fans took the band seriously and you can still see them today, showing up for the band that dared to try and actually succeeded.

From 500 copies of a homemade EP hidden underneath a bed to international record deals, sold-out releases, America, Japan and a worldwide tour, Quarashi's story was anything but predictable.

It was messy. It was ambitious. It was funny. It was occasionally ridiculous.

And it was very, very Icelandic.

Most importantly, it was real.

And the world is still listening.

For those who were there, Quarashi became the soundtrack to a particular era. For those who discovered them later, the music still carries that same electricity the feeling that something could happen at any moment.

Maybe that's why Switchstance still feels so special.

Because before the international spotlight, there were just a few young guys, a freezing garage in Reykjavík, some primitive equipment and a ridiculous idea:

What if they made the music we couldn't find anywhere else?

They did.

And for a while, the world couldn't get enough of it.

The world did listen.