2001 · Soundtrack · Sproti

Kristnihald undir Jökli

While waiting for their USA record company to finally give Jinx a release date (it had been pushed back a year due to their contract being sold to another label), Hössi and Sölvi decided to try something entirely new, writing music for a theatre production. Released on September 22, 2001, Kristnihald undir Jökli is perhaps one of the most intriguing chapters in Quarashi’s story. The album began not in a recording studio, but on the stage of Borgarleikhúsið (an Icelandic theatre), as the soundtrack to a theatrical adaptation of Halldór Laxness’ celebrated novel Kristnihald undir Jökli - known in English as Under the Glacier. Directed by Bergur Þór Ingólfsson, the play ran at Borgarleikhúsið during the winter of 2001, with Sölvi Blöndal and Hössi Ólafsson writing and producing the original music. The result was a largely instrumental collection that showed a very different side of the two musicians, atmospheric, experimental and far removed from the aggressive rap-rock that Quarashi were becoming known for. And yet, despite the fact that Steini (Stoney) and Ómar Swarez had no involvement in the recording, the soundtrack was released under the Quarashi name and is officially regarded as the band's third full-length album. Only 500 copies were ever produced. Most were sold, and today the CD has become one of the rarest and most intriguing pieces of Quarashi history a fascinating snapshot of a band at the height of its creativity, willing to step completely outside its own sound and into another world. For anyone obsessed with the Quarashi story, Kristnihald undir Jökli isn't just a curiosity. It's a little piece of the band's hidden history.