Style:
Indie-electronica
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Releases:
IPlastic Lions (2004)
Voff Voff (dharmacd7/2006)

Einar Tonsberg spent his formative years growing up in Iceland’s Reykjavik pursuing honourable youthful pastimes like building snow houses, falling hopelessly in love and snorting the local vodka-based tipple. His mum sent him to music school to study piano as a boy. “I’d rather have been kicking a football round with mates” he remonstrates, but he also admits it was an invaluable experience.

It spurred him on to buy his first keyboard at 13 and hook up with three fellow classmates; two of them on keyboards and the other on drums. The young Einar was heavily influenced by Basildon’s finest, Depeche Mode, but as a band they all really craved a rock and roll sound, so he learnt guitar. “This was a disaster” he readily admits, “We were a decent electro band but a very average rock band.”

Working his way through a plethora of local combos - pop, punk, electro - Einar was content to be making music with like-minded friends wherever it led him. In time he grew to realise that to fulfill his musical urges, he would have to do it alone - and so Eberg was hatched.

A skewed take on pop quickly became the blueprint for the Eberg sound, “First there would be sounds and rhythms which I found interesting” and songs would develop from there. He had limited gear and a few immovable rules - mainly to avoid writing in the traditional way. This process would lead to what would eventually become his first album ‘Plastic Lions’. He made 50 wooden handmade covers and sold them all to finance 1000 conventional copies that led to Oxford label Rotator eventually giving the homemade gem a full release in 2004. The album found many fans and glittering reviews prompting music industry bible Music Week to declare the Icelandic troubadour a “revelation”.

His constant search for intriguing sounds found him ‘inventing’ and ‘building’ the “eharp”, a bastardisation of a Fender Strat and a coat hanger. “I’ve always been interested in putting normal things together and making them unnormal” he enthuses. Also he freely admits at this time he was a little scared of playing live - “I needed something to hide behind”. In many ways the eharp is the embodiment of the Eberg ethos, a little bit hand-made, a little bit warped but containing the DNA of classic rock.

So bounding into 2006 and we see Eberg settled at a new home Instant Karma, and a bright shiny new album Voff Voff to shout about. Voff Voff incidentally is the sound that Icelandic dogs make. It is classic Eberg, full of odd noises and left turns but brimming with heart tugging irresistible pop. Future classics such as the cheekily titled Love Your Bum or the instantly hummable Inside Your Head seem to bound up and greet you like old friends. It is this perfect blend of leftfield capabilities and classic song writing that is sure to endear Eberg to all that hear him.

A flurry of live activity is promised, now flanked by a band firing on all cylinders he has definitely found the live presence he was searching for in his youth, the teenage Einar would be proud. On the personal front, time is being taken out to build a house this summer in Iceland. It’s a step up from building CD cases but one you feel that this very talented chap will take in his stride.

Press:

“One of the most original laptop troubadours around.” 4/5
- The independent

“Voff Voff' is an atmospheric master piece which oozes quality.”
- Clash

“Voff Voff is a glorious treasure trove.”
- Music Week
 
“a lo-fi dilettante who invests his digital pop with warmth and whimsy.”
- The Times