Andervel is on the rise

He had never been to Iceland, so didn’t know where the image was taken – but was drawn to the white church with green turrets, perched serenely beside a still, blue lake; so different to the colorful, warmth of his home city, Querétaro. “It became a symbol of Reykjavik for me - I saw it and thought ‘I’m going there’”, he recalls.

The image was of Frikirkjan – a Lutheran church that dates back to the early 1900s – and which for a few days each November, is transformed into one of the major music venues at Iceland Airwaves Festival. Anderson is one of the artists performing there again this year – marking one of the most important sets of his career so far. “I don’t know if I was manifesting it! But it’s one of my favourite venues, and the best place for my type of music to play. I’m going to make a special occasion of it.”

As Andervel, Anderson makes brooding, acoustic-led music that adds sighing harmonies onto observant lyrics. His debut album, Ironclad and Palm trees, is the perfect soundtrack of the current autumnal shift - recalling the spine-tingling mysticism of tracks introspective millennial anthems like “Blood” by Middle East or Bon Iver’s “Holocene”; yet made entirely different by Anderson’s singular musical background.

Anderson’s first forays into music were through his grandfather – an opera singer and decorated classical tenor. He grew up within walking distance from his grandfather's house, where he would spend countless Sundays singing with him while shadowing him around the house. “I knew I wanted to do music very early on; that I want to be a musician like my grandpa and sing like my grandpa,” he says. “Both my grandma and grandpa are very important figures in my upbringing.” 

Noticing the boy’s natural inclination for song, his grandfather began to train him formally through the songs of the Antología Italiana, in addition to the classical composers of Latin America, such as the great Mexican composer Manuel María Ponce Cuéllar and the tangos of Carlos Gardel.

As a teenager, Anderson found his way to the guitar, and the influence of his parent’s own eclectic music – from the Beatles to Cuban songwriter Sivilio Rodriguez – began to imprint on his musical aspirations. Seeking a way to meld his own interest as a songwriter and his classical groundings, he scoured educational programmes that combined his two worlds, which is how he found the New Audiences and Innovative Practice MA in Iceland. 

“Of course, I knew Sigur Rós and Björk, but it wasn't that that brought me here. It was more the idea of space, to develop myself, a different pace of living. In Mexico, you work a lot, you don't have time to do your own craft, to protect it.”

When Anderson arrived, he was struck by Reykjavik's small but robust support for grassroots musicians, from the accessibility of state of the art studios to the numerous venues to play live spaces, alongside the opportunity presented by Iceland Airwaves. He began to release music during the two-year course, and played gigs as soon as he was able to. “I played wherever I could, I can be a very insistent person,” he smiles. 

Coming from a close-knit family and a Latin culture that exudes warmth and contact, Anderson relied on his persistence as a survival mechanism, a way to make friends, ward off loneliness and build a career. At first, his forwardness took Icelanders by surprise – but it is this, he says, that helped him enter into the heart of the Reykjavik scene. 

Crucially, he also approached his new home with patience, respect, and genuine curiosity. Anderson speaks Icelandic, learnt by studying the language through the early 20th-century poets Jóhann Sigurjónsson and Hulda. “Old poetry gives you a particular perspective on language, a glimpse into the paths of language,” he tells me. “Each language has its own way of thinking.” 

Three of the seven tracks on Ironclad and Palm trees are sung in Icelandic, directly influenced by the poems. The lulling, optimism ‘Þá komst þú’ is inspired by Hulda’s ‘Mig dreymdi eitt sinn’, while ‘Báran’ is based on the words of Sigurjónsson’s poem of the same name. “It just matched what I wanted to say, matched the imagery about the sea and sunset, establishing a parallelism with a more personal and emotional connection,” Anderson says. Living in Iceland has also made him more contemplative and observant, “first because I didn’t know the language, you are listening and observing more than participating”.

This experience is acutely clear in tracks like “Foxglove”; which simply describes a scene over the rhythmic plucks of guitar strings and rolling percussion: “The pulling of the tides, The wind against the walls,The pulling of the tides,The swelling and the surge”, he sings, softly. 

“My songs are very much painting a picture, just because of what we have outside the window, the qualities of the country, the light, the atmosphere, the landscape,” Anderson says, gesturing to the window beside him.  

While the Icelandic influence is clear, Ironclad and and Palm trees is based on conversation between his worlds – the feeling of missing home and not being able to come home to the people you love each day, while embracing a sense of self. His grandmother, Crucita, became sick during the writing of the album and, sadly, passed away. “Much of the album was written thinking about her,” says Anderson. His grandfather, Librado, struck by grief, died shortly after the album was completed. “Probably because he didn’t want to live without her,” he contemplates. ”So the songs have taken on an additional dimension within that context.” 

Anderson’s upcoming gig at Iceland Airwaves is a full circle to the time he first put Frikirkjan on the background of his phone; when Crucita and Librado rallied around him to support his step into the unknown with unfiltered love and support. It’s a gig that won’t only honour them, but also pay respect to what Iceland has given him: from his state-supported studio at the artistic Hafnar.Haus community, to Kliður, his local choir that will join him onstage for a special performance. ”Iceland has taught me a more playful way to approach music, by just doing it, and finding my way while doing it. That has a completely different result as approaching it in a very square way,” Anderson says. “The space that Iceland gives to try out things and allow yourself to venture into something you are not so comfortable with.”

It’s an ethos that will follow him to the stage this November: “I want to make a special occasion of it.”