Apparat Organ Quartet

Icelandic electronic music ensemble

Hailing from Reykjavík, Iceland and founded in 1999, Apparat Organ Quartet is a band that originally included the musicians Hörður Bragason, Músikvatur, Úlfur Eldjárn and Jóhann Jóhannsson. They were soon joined by drummer Þorvaldur Gröndal, replaced in 2001 by Arnar Geir Ómarsson, drummer of the Icelandic rock band HAM. Lacking the time to dedicate himself to the group because of his solo projects, Jóhann Jóhannsson left the band in 2012. The quartet sometimes describe their music as "Machine Rock and Roll" where every note is hand-played, with not a sequencer or computer in sight. The members play keyboards from their collection of jurassic analog machinery, including Russian synthesizers and customized home organs, Italian transistor organs from the 60's, malfunctioning Hammonds, old school vocoders and various circuit-bent Casios and Portasounds.