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ROSTER

John Cloud MD & BOXER - BARK AT YOUR OWNER AB AND CMG Holding AB

Kuggur has signed to Bark At Your Owner (BAYO) for his coming album in 2023.

Based in Reykjavik Iceland, his real name is Guðmundur Óli Pálmason aka Gummi to his friends. While attending Iceland Airwaves Conference in Reykjavik, Icelannd, The MD of BAYO was hanging with Carlos the guitarist of the band Maulén signed to Icons Creating Evil Art and he asked the MD if he wanted to hang along to a meeting with Gummi who has a history in one of Icelands biggest metal-rock exports from Iceland.

 

BAYO’s MD enjoyed the meeting and asked Gummi if he could send him some of his new music.  After a few e-mails, BAYO’s MD fixed a couple of Guest vocalist on some tracks one with Colin And the Clouds and another with Martin BOMAN artist name Martin Rubashov signed to Despotz Records. It was shortly after he signed with Bark At Your Owner in Dec 2022.

BIO

Although Kuggur is a new musical entity, its sole member Guðmundur Óli Pálmason is no newcomer to music, being currently active in Icelandic post-doom/black metal band Katla as well as having been a founding member and drummer for twenty years in Sólstafir and having contributed to Potentiam, who now holds a cult status within the international black metal scene.
 

Kuggur's music is of a new ilk though, being mostly electronic and ambient in nature, Guðmundur uses Kuggur to explore previously unvisited musical landscapes without any pre-set limitations. 

Guðmundur started his solo project in 2020 and has said he did not have any high hopes or dreams for it at the beginning and that was just a way for him to experiment with music without any preconceived boundaries and without the confines of a band. He chose to simply use the same name he uses for his visual art, Kuggur ( www.kuggur.com ) as he sees both as an extension of his own persona. Guðmundur ties the two together, using his own visual art for both Katla and Kuggur, he proclaims it all stems from the same pot of inspiration.
 

When Belfry Records offered to release Kuggur's album حصاد َض ْوءٌ النُّ ُجوم (the title translates to Harvesting the Light of the Stars) as a CD, Guðmundur began to see potentials with the project becoming something that might very well reach a bigger audience than he had initially hoped for.
 

After a chance meeting with publisher/record label boss John Cloud, Kuggur signed with his Swedish label Bark at Your Owner.

At that time, Guðmundur had already written and recorded a new album which was initially supposed to be instrumental but he felt maybe the music could benefit from having vocals. Label boss John helped Guðmundur reach out to vocalists in Sweden and Finland while Guðmundur decided to get in touch with a traditional Lebanese Mawal singer that had sung at his wedding party which his mother-in-law had organized for him and his wife in Lebanon (Guðmundur's wife is Lebanese). Guðmundur's wife also put him in contact with another Lebanese singer she knows. According to Guðmundur, that's how he ended up with an album full of singers he really didn't know before, with each and every one of them bringing something unique to the songs.

Outlived, therefore, became a cooperation between Guðmundur (as kuggur), the multiple singers, John, Guðmundur's wife (who also translated some of Guðmundur's lyrics to Arabic and did all the calligraphy), and mixing/mastering engineer Henry Barboza, who made sure everything sounds like an album, rather than just a collection of different songs with different singers.

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Guðmundur Óli Pálmason aka Gummi to his friends.

KUGGUR feat Sofia Härdig - MISS single coverartwork single copy.jpg

New Digital Single release Aug 10, 2023

KUGGUR feat Sofia Härdig

"Miss"

All artwork by Guðmundur Óli Pálmason Handwriting and logo by Yara Zein

A few quotes from reviews of previous album:

"This is a one-of-a-kind experience with so many vast genres being played with and interpreted in such a fresh way, it feels like nothing else you’ll hear this year. Cinematic and melancholy, blending folk music of many cultures, electronica and ambience, KUGGUR has achieved something bold, broad and exciting."  

8/10 distortedsoundmag.com

 

"this is a well-thought out piece of music, dark ambient more in the melancholic way (...) than in the menacing and ominous way."

Metalstorm.net

"This album is absolutely phenomenal. It is impossible to ignore, forgetting is not an option. It is certainly one of the most successful Icelandic ambient releases."

5/5 http://www.stacjaislandia.pl

"I recommend to submerge deeply in حصاد ضَوْءٌ النُّجُومِ and to let go. It might open your mind for something special."

8/10 www.nocturnalhall.com

"This is a work that arises from the clash of cultures and ideas between Middle Eastern and Icelandic music that Pálmason gathered in conversations with his Lebanese wife. The result is fascinating for the hypnotic and haunting effect it shows us, being perfect for a soundtrack or simply as a way to lose ourselves in ourselves. Somewhere between ambient and folk, the debut of this project is passionate and begs for continuity."

9/10 (featured in albums of the month) worldofmetalmag.com

"A very beautiful and special record for all those who like atmospheric, dark and melancholic music with electronic elements. But even if you haven't indulged in this kind of album, I'd suggest giving it a listen."

7,5/10 Greekrebels.gr

 

"the fact of putting electronic parts gives a plus to his music, which is not only in the folk, but is projected to modern instrumentals that together with the "oriental" voices give it that modern new age  touch that is how this work is perceived in the end.

An interesting album, balanced, atmospheric, not monotonous either."

7/10 www.metallerium.com/

Kuggur featuring Stinako Aurinko Ja Kuu Cover.jpg

Digital Single release May 25, 2023

Aurinko ja kuu - feat Stinako

All artwork by Guðmundur Óli Pálmason Handwriting and logo by Yara Zein

LINKS / DOWNLOADS

FOLLOW KUGGUR

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CONTACT

John Cloud, MD​

Bark AT Your Owner

+46 703 755090

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Kuggur

DARKWAVE - AMBIENT - INDUSTRIAL ARTIST

Photo by Yara Zein

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We are a part of the CMG Holdings Group.  
Which holds labels Icons Creating Evil Art, Despotz Records, Flick Agency and Mars Music Publishing and more.

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