Meet Virgin Orchestra, the Icelandic trio playing classical-edged punk
With backgrounds in classical music and electronic composition, this trio’s take on guitar music is thrillingly original.
One of the highlights of Rolling Stone UK’s time at Iceland Airwaves festival last November was a set from local trio Virgin Orchestra.
The young band – Rún, (cello) Stef (bass, vocals) and Starri (guitar) – played a show upstairs at the sweaty rock club Gaukurrin, and their sound touches on the grungey aesthetics of the room, while creating a sound and idea that’s entirely new.
Though on first listen their music might sound adjacent to post-punk, the band formed when Stef and Starri were studying electronic composition together, with classically trained cellist Rún proving the missing piece of the jigsaw.
Debut EP Fragments, recorded in Berlin and released on the legendary Reykjavík label Bad Taste/ Smekkleysa, came out in 2023, with aptly-named new single ‘Banger’ following it last year.
Ahead of their Iceland Airwaves show, we met the band in their hometown to discuss their unusual make-up, the hope to make something genuinely new, and traversing genre boundaries.
Listen to ‘Banger’ and read our Play Next interview with Virgin Orchestra below.
How would you describe your songwriting process?
Stef: Sometimes I feel it’s almost be like this kids’ game, where someone draws a hat, and then you fold it over. The next one draws the body and then someone else the legs. Sometimes I will just write this super basic vocal and bass thing, and then hand it to Starri, and it’s all of a sudden…
Rún: …completely different! You take things in a certain direction, but when others touch upon it, it goes to a different place that you wouldn’t have thought of yourself. We all add something to the mix.
Starri: We’re not really a band that write stuff in a rehearsal space. There’s three of us, and the music has synths and drums that you can’t play that or control while you’re also playing your instrument, We were sort of forced to do it this way, but it has actually worked really well.
It feels a little more like the creation of electronic music than a punk band – is that accurate, and do you take inspiration from that music?
Rún: [Stef and Starri] have been studying electronic composition.
Stef: We realised that something was missing [from the music they were making together]…
Rún: The [module] was ‘popular music’, after they’d done some more avant-garde stuff, and realised that something was missing from it. That’s how I got adopted into the family.
Stef: We wanted to do what felt natural to us.
Rún: It is quite weird I guess, but we haven’t thought about it at all really. We want to use all our tools and talents and put it into the band.
Stef: Starri is this crazy good guitar player, Rún has been learning the classical cello for 20 years. There’s so many talents we bring to the table!
Had you played in a contemporary band playing pop music before?
Rún: I played in symphony orchestras and have a degree in classical cello, and I’m teaching.
Stef: She’s teaching me cello!
Rún: And she’s giving me classes in Ableton! I’ve always seen this missing space of possibilities that I feel the cello brings. I took one class in my old music school back home, and I saw all the possibilities. The classical is so separated from all [other music], and I got really intrigued. I’ve always wanted to go into the electronic cello more, but you have no role models in the way that I would like to see.
Stef: But then it’s completely unchartered territory!
If your music is made without firm reference points, and trying to do something different, is it created in quite an improvised way?
Rún: You feel openings and space in an improvised setting. The cello is like a human voice so you can mix it with everything. In this dynamic, we have the rock-ness of the guitars and then the vocals which are cool and beautiful, with great lyrics. With the electronic drums, it’s all driven by this heaviness and hardness, and the cello and synths are smoothing it all over.
You release new single ‘Banger’ late last year – is there more on the way?
Stef: Our next EP is recorded, and will be released in the spring.
Starri: We just wrote stuff and it naturally ended up going in a slightly different direction.
Rún: We’ve honed our writing skills and how we want to do it. We have a much more rounded sound, and we can play it how we want it. It’s a lot more intricate but also bigger.