自上世纪90年代中期开始，独自屹立于世界尽头的冰岛始终在挖掘一种扎根于本地风貌、身披浓霜的 dub techno 声响，将这片冰封之地遍野大雾茫茫的极端气候用音乐传递给世界。根据冰岛旅游局的数据显示，自2016年开始日益繁荣的旅游业让冰岛居民的住房受到影响，租金的上浮使很多艺术家生活饱受局限。加上本就寥寥无几的俱乐部，很难想象电子音乐行业在这种情况下何以生存。但事实证明，当地的年轻制作人正紧密地团结在一起，冰岛 techno 正势不可挡地在国内外蔓延。
回到最初的记忆，来自 Thule Records 的联合创始人 Thor 及已故的 ambient 传奇人物 Biogen 作为领头者率先勾画出了冰岛之声的雏形，大气氛围萦绕的极简旋律是该厂牌的标志性声音，在 techno 领域有着“冰岛奇迹”之称的 Exos 便涌现于这片激流——17岁在 Thule 发行首张 EP《Green Beat》，随后八年陆续在 Thule、Mosaic、Slow to Speak 等唱片公司陆续发行十余张 EP 及三张专辑。但到了00年代初期，Exos 似乎进入休眠状态，经历了十多年的沉寂后，他的复出让冰岛 techno 舞台重焕活力。Exos 开始尝试将自己曾经的经典创作与新想法糅合在一起，不仅为 Nina Kraviz 厂牌 трип 的首个发行《The Deviant Octopus》贡献了旧曲目《Nuclear Red Guard》的再版（曾在 1998 年发布于 Thule Records 的子厂牌 Plast Trax）；其01年的《My Home is Sonic》亦被荷兰厂牌 Delsin Records 收入囊中，被誉为当代 dub techno 的经典之作。Exos 也因此在当时成为 Bjarki、Orang Volante 和 BenSol 等一众冰岛新血的风向标。
从左到右：《Green Beat》《Q-Box》《Invisible Limits Vol. 1》
《My Home is Sonic》
2017年，Exos 创立了自己的厂牌 X/OZ，就像兀立在冰岛风景中的不屈之根，该厂牌在歌颂家乡风貌之余，也不乏对经典声音的温习之作。首个合辑《Invisible Limits Vol. 1》，其中收录了 Exos 近年来关系紧密的艺术家作品，还有自90年代后期便持续支持他的父亲、身为 Thule Records 初始成员的 Octal 也为专辑贡献了曲目。在跌宕的鼓声中，冰岛独特而崎岖的环境始终是 Exos 创作的基石，他的音乐映射了这片寒冷却繁衍着旺盛景观的“冰与火之国”。该厂牌还再版了 Exos 1999 年于 Thule Records 发行的《Q-Box》，鼓点和旋律的互动与平衡构建着 dub techno 的赞美诗。
左：《Ingo - PX-1》，右：《100 Years of Colombia - PX - 99》
2019 年，Exos 创立全新厂牌 Planet X，深入 techno 更深处的未知领域。就像 Planet X 所描述的那样——它是隐匿于太阳系中一颗行星，人们对它知之甚少，而它正全力前往银河舞池的中心。首张 EP《Ingo - PX - 1》中，略带乡村乐氛围的俱乐部曲目《Bingo 3000》采样了父亲 Octal 的摇滚曲目；两位 techno 中坚人物 Ben Sims 与 Antigone 带来的 remix 版本则探索着迷幻维度的绝对混乱。紧接着，Planet X 又集结 Matrixxman, UFO95, Gotshell, Arthur Robert 等杰出音乐人持续输出宇宙音景。2021年发行的《100 Years of Colombia - PX - 99》更是联合包含 Rødhåd, Sunil Sharpe, Dasha Rush, Marcel Dettmann, DJ Nobu, Nina Kraviz, DJ Rush, Lady Starlight 及 Exos 本人等99位来自世界各地的音乐人为哥伦比亚人民的权益发声，并将合辑收益悉数捐赠于哥伦比亚各地的慈善组织。
4月1日，Exos 将来到 POTENT，更多活动详情请关注后续公众号。而关于他心中的冰岛风景、厂牌背后的故事与其十余年的沉寂，让我们提前透过下面来自 Groove Magzine 的采访了解更多。
90年代初期，你通过冰岛电台接触到 techno，你的父亲——当地知名艺术家 Octal 开始鼓励你制作音乐。虽然当时的 Thule 在冰岛如日中天，但雷克雅未克当地的景象又是怎样的呢？是否有足够的空间去构建一个场景？
You were introduced to techno through Icelandic radio in the early 90s and your father – himself a musician known as Octal – heavily encouraged you to start making music. The Thule label was obviously in full swing at that time, but how did the local scene in Reykjavík look like? Were there spaces to go, a scene?
当时的场景挺不错的，我们有一个叫做 Moon Club 的大型俱乐部会邀请 DJ 和乐队演出，The Prodigy 和 Masters At Work 就曾去过。1995年我为了听 Damon Wild 第一次去到那里。互联网出现之前，我们每周六晚上都会收听一个名为 Party Zone 的广播电台，那也是我当时了解 techno 的途径。那时的 DJ 非常深入这个场景，他们常常像在丛林中寻找食物一般搜寻唱片。对唱片的极度痴迷使他们无论如何都要得到想要的那张唱片。但在那时的情况下，这是不可能的。这就是为什么冰岛的 DJ 常常跑去伦敦买唱片，伦敦是最佳的购买之地，甚至比德国还要好。1997年，雷克雅未克又出现了另一家传奇俱乐部 Thomsen，这个更小、更私密的空间让周末变得漫长而狂野。
The scene was actually pretty good at that time, we had a big club open that hosted events, bands, DJs. I remember The Prodigy playing there, and Masters At Work. My first time going there was to listen to Damon Wild in the year 1995. It was called the Moon Club. This was before the internet so we got all our information through a radio program called the Party Zone on Saturday nights. There were about ten DJs that played there, and two or three of them played techno. That’s where back then I got most of my techno knowledge from. DJs at that time were really deep into the scene and they used to hunt records as if it were food in the jungle. The vinyl obsession was serious. If you wanted a record, you had to get it somehow. No matter what. But in many cases, it was not possible. That’s why Icelandic DJs went to London to buy records. London was the best place for it, even better than Germany. In the year 1997, Reykjavik had another legendary club called Thomsen. That was a smaller space and more intimate. The weekends were long and wild.
EXOS | @MedellinStyle.com Freedom | The Lighthouse | BE-AT.TV
2019年，你推出了厂牌 Planet X，首张 EP 收录了来自你本人的新旧声音。紧接着第二张 EP 则收录了 Matrixxman 及 Q-Cumb (Bjarki) 等人的作品。那么，Planet X 是一个什么样的概念？
Earlier this year, you have launched the label Planet X with an EP featuring old and new material of your own. This month, you will release an EP featuring Matrixxman and Bjarki under his Q-Cumb alias. What’s the concept of Planet X?
这个概念实际上很简单，我想构建一个平台以探索比 X/OZ 更坚硬的声音，成立之前我已经计划了两三年，Planet X 更具实验性、有着更粗糙的质感。还有一些新老朋友的加入，像是 Remco Beekwilder, DJ Rush。当然还有 Gotshell，Setaoc Mass 和 Takaaki Itoh。所以即将有很多令人兴奋的作品出现。
The concept is pretty simple actually. I want to build up a platform for harder material than I have been releasing through the X/OZ label, which is more experimental and dubby. Planet X is rougher and harder. I have actually been planning it for two or three years and now it’s happening. I have some old and new friends coming out on Planet X. Remco Beekwilder, DJ Rush and of course a Gotshell release featuring Setaoc Mass and Takaaki Itoh remixes. So there is a lot of exciting material coming up.
在三个不同的发行里，你再版了一些你在 1997 - 2001 年间的经典作品，是什么使你开始了这项工作。
You will also re-release some of your classic releases from around 1997 to 2001 on three different releases in the course of three months. What made you undertake this task?
对，我已经计划了很长一段时间。当收到许多关于我 1997 到 2001 那段时间发行的作品的信息、问题与请求时，我便决定重新发行当时以黑胶形式出现的所有创作。其中大部分甚至无法在 YouTube 上搜到。除此之外我还添加了一些像是 Waage, Ohm, Bjarki, Lafontaine 及 Octal Industries 等与我联系紧密的音乐人的 remix 和 edit。
Yes, that’s something I have been planing for quite some time now. As I get a lot of messages, questions and requests about my old material that was released between 1997 and 2001, I decided to re-release all the old stuff that came out on vinyl back then. Most of it isn’t even available on YouTube. I added some remixes and edits from close partners such as Waage, Ohm, Bjarki, Lafontaine and Octal Industries, to name a few. The first release is coming out in December and it’s my first release ever, originally out in 1997. The second release coming out is my favourite, Q-Box. Then the third will be Downgarden, which originally came out in 2016. Then in January, I release all the stuff that came out on Force Inc, the albums Eleventh and Strenght. In February, I will release the rest of the music that came out around that time and also new unreleased music as well.
创作初期对你来说是一个非常多产的时期——你在 00 与 01 仅仅两年内就发行了三张专辑。但2004年之后，你显然放慢了脚步，是什么导致了这种情况？
The time in which the original releases saw the light of day was a very prolific one for you – you put out three albums in 2000 and 2001 alone. After 2004 however, you had noticeably slowed down before releasing music more frequently again in recent years. Why did you become so elusive after 2004?
2004年发生了很多激动人心的事情，但也有很多情况导致艺术家和唱片公司陷入困境。那年黑胶唱片大师 Dave Clarke 预言，所有关于舞曲的唱片行业都将在世界上消失。事实证明他是对的，一年后大部分 techno 发行商都倒闭了。2005年我正在开始一个名为 Do Not Sleep 的厂牌，但因为唱片市场太糟糕使我无法继续。许多 techno 知名音乐人都与他们的经销商之间存在严重的问题，其中最主要的 Prime 甚至都倒闭了。在我还没准备好的情况下，数字音乐正在接管市场。2004年我在不同的厂牌有四五个即将发行的作品，但他们告诉我市场几乎在一夜之间崩塌。所以我开始专注于我的 DJ，在那段时间进行了一些本地与国际演出。2005年我开始在冰岛展开 techno 活动。那很有趣，作为 DJ 和 promoter 所背负的压力让我逐渐忘记了自己是一名制作人。
A lot of exciting things happened in 2004. Also a lot of other things, difficult things for a lot of artists and a lot of labels. In 2004 Dave Clarke, the vinyl master himself, predicted that all the vinyl industry for dance music would disappear. He was right. A year later, most of the distribution companies for Techno went out of business. I actually started a label called Do Not Sleep in 2005 and I couldn’t continue as the vinyl market was so bad. Many of the biggest names in Techno had big problems with their distributors and the main distributor Prime even went out of business. Digital music was taking over, not only the CD market but also regards to the studio equipment. I wasn’t ready to make the shift to the digital world. I had four or five releases lined up and confirmed on different labels in 2004, but they all told me that the market crashed almost overnight. Some of my mates in the label business lost a lot of money as well. So I focused more on my DJing and played some local and international gigs at this time. And in 2005 I started doing techno events in Iceland. That was fun and because of a stressful mindset as a DJ and a promoter I forgot about being an artist.
作为 DJ，你有时会用三台唱机进行演出，这种形式吸引你的地方在哪儿？基于三台唱机的 set 需要什么样的准备？
As a DJ, you occasionally play on three decks. Why does this appeal to you as a DJ and what kind of preparation does a set on three decks need?
对我来说，用三台唱机演出是我作为 DJ 能想象到最困难的事情。当我这样操作的时候，我不在乎自己是为一大群人还是为一个人演出，我只是在挑战自己。我就像一个尽力而为的画家——我认为画家只是在进行创作，而不在乎旁人的看法。我会尽可能地集中精力在两首曲目中，确保其稳定进行后，再混入第三张唱片。如果听起来不错，我会尝试让它播放地久一点。我一直保持着这种氛围，如果我一段时间不碰唱机我便会丢失这种感觉，但只要一两天就能重新找回。为了突尼斯的 Boiler Room three deck vinyl set，我花了几周时间练习，当我抵达 DJ 台，我们遭遇了暴风雨，我的唱片淋湿了，狂风与大雨让相机变得模糊，帐篷里也闷热无比，但回看视频我依旧感到满意。
For me, playing on three decks and making it work is the most difficult thing I can ever imagine as a DJ. When I am doing it, I don’t care if I am playing for a big crowd or alone. I am just there to challenge myself. I’m like a painter doing his best – I think a painter is just being creative and not caring about what people around them are thinking about their painting. So in a way, the three-deck mixing for me might not even be DJing after all. Anyways, when I am playing on three decks, I am concentrating as much as possible to have two records in the mix. Once I got that straight, I blend the third record into the mix. If it sounds ok, I try to keep it running as long as possible. And then I maintain that vibe on and on. If I don’t touch the decks for a while I lose the practice and the touch, but it takes me only one or two days to get it back. I did a full-on three-deck mix for Boiler Room in Tunis and I took a couple of weeks to practise for it. When I entered the DJ booth in Tunis, we had a thunderstorm and rain coming on to us so hard that my vinyl records were showered in seconds. The storm and the rain made the cameras blurry and it was very hot in the tent. But after watching I was happy with the technical part and the results.
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图片 ©️ Exos
参考来源：Groove Magazine [Exos – Groove Podcast 232]；Fact Magazine [The Icelandic electronic music renaissance: Sónar Reykjavík reviewed]
