On the day I was born, “Freedom” by Wham! was at the top of the charts. David Lynch was in Mexico having a hell of a time shooting the desert scenes of Arrakis. The next few years would see the release of the greatest fantasy films ever made. Dexys and OMD had just a few years previously already released Searching for the Young Soul Rebels and Architecture & Morality (respectively). It would still be a few years before Chumbawamba would release Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records. In a moment of misguided national pride my parents had decided to return from their studies in the States to give birth to me on Icelandic soil. I was named Þórir, after my grandfather. (As English speakers tend to have great difficulty with rolled R’s and placing the emphasis on the first syllable it’s often simplified to “Thor.”)
I then spent the greater remainder of my life growing up under the California sun. One day my friend Rachel and I were watching Conan The Barbarian and a really sweet line from the movie became the name for this project. With a head full of fantasy movies, 60s soul, beach pop, freakbeat, lo-fi indie stuff, diy principles, and nihilist philosophy I began to record songs on my hand-me-down laptop, layering together a mostly-one-person, often Spectoresque, wall of sound.
I wrote and recorded most of the debut full-length, “The Dionysian Season” (Brak), and EP cassette tape split with James Rabbit (Wizards of the Ghost) in my apartment after moving back to Iceland in December 2009, with some parts recorded the previous year in bedrooms and living rooms where I was living in Santa Cruz, CA and Austin, TX. Rachel sings on a few songs, of which one we wrote together.

Forget Everything I Have Said

West Coast Pop

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