Sólrún, María, Edda and Hildur, four Icelandic women in their mid twenties collectively known as amiina first decided they wanted to write music together in 2004. They gathered together every last instrument they could find and piled them into their car. They then filled every available bit of space with food.
This, they maintain, was a very, very important part of the process. But it was also very nearly the act that prevented the birth of amiina. Their overloaded car was unable to struggle up the steep mountainous incline to the studio they had chosen, and had a local farmer not towed them to their destination with his tractor amiina might never have come to be.
KURR, the bands debut album, named after the sound that birds are said to make in Iceland makes it clear that they have not learnt their lesson from this experience. amiina are the kind of band about whom it could be said, almost literally, that they employ pretty much everything but the kitchen sink. And though it's true that they started with individually defined roles as a string quartet this was never going to be how they would set about making a record of their own. In amiina there are no specific assignments: no official bass player, drummer, guitarist or singer.
