Kári Guðmundsson aka Hypno hails from the heart of Reykjavik, Iceland. For the last several years he’s been producing dubstep full force and has helped promote the sounds of the genre in his hometown in venues such as Prikið and Jacobsen. His expert productions perfectly meld techno, garage, house, bass and a host of other influences; and have been receiving airplay from the legendary BunZero amoung others.

“Elevate”, “Autumn” and “Telescope” will be released on Haunted Audio Recordings in a few weeks. You can check out his sound here: soundcloud.com/hypno or on his myspace: myspace.com/hypnonpyh
This young producer is one to watch!

What inspired you to start producing music and what are some of your influences?
Well what I think that inspired me to start making music the most is my lessons in classical guitar back when I was 9 years old. I would often make short pieces of music for the guitar when I was bored and develop them more into songs later on. Alongside the guitar lessons I studied music theory which is really helpful right now as I’m making lots of different rhythms and chord progressions. I started making hiphop beats in early 2005 (I think) and made a few tunes with Icelandic mcs. Those tunes were mostly made out of samples from from the internet or from records from the flea market. Then a good friend of mine introduced me to dnb which really wasn’t my cup of tea; but a different genre very close to dnb called dubstep really fascinated me. That music was (most of the time) not made around samples so your musical thoughts and ideas were much more exposed.

Some of my current influences include Martyn, Untold, Ramadanman, Joy Orbison, 2562/Made up sound, Peverelist and many, many others…

What is one of your best ‘music moments’ (ie concert/show you attended, gig you dj’d)?
I really can’t think of a ‘moment’ but I can mention the great monthly clubnights here in Reykjavik called Breakbeat.is which play all kinds of experimental sounds but mainly dnb..
My best gig, of rather few, was at the latest Airwaves festival. I was playing a live set in the basement of a nice club called Jacobsen on a Breakbeat.is night along with Muted, Raychem, Subminimal, Panoramix and djs Kalli & Gunni Ewok. The night went well and a group of nice people gathered to listen.

What inspires you, musically or otherwise?
Musically it is my iPod to be honest; but otherwise it would be the weather, or rather the shortage of daylight here in Iceland; really f***s you up…