Jack Magnet Science

Jakob Magnússon has lived many lives. After forming Iceland’s legendary Stuðmenn back in high school, Magnússon spent the next five decades as a multi-disciplinary artist, never standing still for long. Jack Magnet Science is the latest iteration of Magnússon’s ever-evolving endeavors, using a moniker that harkens back to a 1981 album. Accordingly, Future Forecast is layered with fragments of personal history and crossed paths. Some years ago, Magnússon and his Stuðmenn compatriot Tómas Tómasson were listening to their mutual favorite musician, the Austrian jazz adventurer Joseph Zawinul. This took them down a rabbit hole, through Zawinul’s work in the Weather Report, and the iconic album that indirectly birthed that band: Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. The project ground to a halt when Tómasson died in 2018. Fast forward five years, and Magnússon found himself presented with an opportunity to record at Flóki, a remote studio in the far north of Iceland. The original vision he and Tómasson had was revived and remixed, reborn as Jack Magnet Science. Magnússon gathered an ensemble: his Stuðmenn bandmates Ragga Gísla, Disa Jakobs and Egill Ólafsson on vocals and Eyþór Gunnarsson on keys, Einar Scheving on percussion, Matthew Garrison on bass, Phil Doyle on reeds, the former The Sugarcubes drummer Sigtryggur Baldursson on percussion, and Weather Report's own Peter Erskine on the kit.