Stilluppsteypa
The Immediate Past Is Of No Interest To Us - 10 Years Of Continuous Pointless Activities
2002 Bottrop-Boy CD

Track Listing:

1. This Stuff Makes Me HOT!
2. Hello, Mr. Robot Man
3. I Saw Wood You Say So
4. It's Not Pointless
5. We Crawled Out Of The MostlyWood Works (Ten Years Ago)
6. A Brother Is Family
7. Taking Things A Bit More Serious From Now On (Ten Years After)
8. The Robot Acted As It Did Because Of What It Is
9. Something Very Bad (Most Likely A Pool Of Urine)
10. Robots Do Queer Things Under Tension
11. We Sure Could Use With Some Extra Help
12. Let's Use This As It Is For The Album

Reviews:

Helen Scarsdale

While my faculties may be called into question for such a statement, I nevertheless must pronounce my belief that without Bruce Gilbert, Wire would have been nothing. The post-154 albums by Dome, He Said, and Duet Emmo spotlighted the adventurous talents of Mr. Gilbert in bridging an ever expansive repetoire of electronic craftiness and an pop sensibility whose occasional saccharine nature borders on the absurd. This is of course not to belittle the fine work of fellow Wire / Dome / Duet Emmo collaborator Graham Lewis, although Colin Newman's solo projects have been curious to say the least. Recently, I had been digging through my archives trying to find artists who had achieved something similar to those post-Wire ensembles, trying to find a similar ecstatic sentiment. How silly of me not to look to Stilluppsteypa.

With a new record pending for sometime in 2004, the 2002 release of The Immediate Past... remains the most recent body of work for the Icelandic duo of Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson and Helgi Thorsson, and the first album published after the departure of the original trio's Heimir Bjorgulffson. Seasick arpeggiations, carnivalesque fragmented melodies, and idiosyncratic rhythms splatter out in every direction. It has always been Stilluppsteypa's black humour that keeps their clinical timbres and cold glitches sounding too much like Oval, Pan Sonic, or Alva Noto; and that humour is a constant subtext to their work. A thoroughly brilliant body of work, even though it sounds absolutely nothing like anything that Mr. Gilbert has ever done. Oh well.