Hafdis Huld started singing with GusGus when she was just 15 years old.
She toured the world with the nine-piece Icelandic throughout the rest of her teens, loving the limelight and enjoying a number one single in Mexico, of all places, as well as widespread attention across Europe.
After leaving the band she started writing her own songs, and quickly collaborated with FC Kahuna, co-writing their singles ‘Hayling’ and ‘Machine Says Yes’. Elsewhere she sang with dance producers Ewan Pearson and Tom Middleton on their artist projects.
‘Dirty Paper Cup’ was written over a long-ish period of time with various song-writing collaborators, including Chris Corner from Sneaker Pimps, Pascal Gabriel, producer Jim ‘Arctic Monkeys’ Abbiss and others.
These disparate elements were pulled into sharp focus by the twin talents of co-writer Boo Hewerdine and producer Neill MacColl, who in an amazing labour of love, teased Hafdis’s charming excursions into her own world of imagination into something approaching a unique album.
Full of quirky pop songs with a twist, where sweet melodies and simple beats belie the dark undercurrents of the lyrics. ‘Dirty Paper Cup’ is Hafdis Huld: fresh, funny, odd, seductive, Icelandic and above all, great pop music.
The coolest things to come out of Iceland this year, Hafdis Huld is definitely one to watch in 2006.
