Iceland
Kieron Tyler
The attack is relentless. Its power pummels like a gale. The 2015 model Mercury Rev begin their set at Iceland Airwaves as they meant to finish. Never has this band been so forceful, so kinetic. Yet their trademark balance of filmic drama and delicate melody was not sacrificed during this convincing revitalisation. On stage at Reykjavík’s Harpa concert hall on the festival's second day, Mercury Rev set a bar so high it sowed seeds suggesting nothing could top this. If they are playing, see them.Mercury Rev were performing in the wake of the release of The Light in You, their first album for Read more ...
graham.rickson
Hugi Guðmundsson: Calm of the Deep The Hamrahlíd Choir/Þorgerður Ingólfsdóttir, Nordic Affect/Guðni Franzson (Smekkleysa)Calm of the Deep introduces us to contemporary Icelandic composer Hugi Guðmundsson. Who sees his music as “a dialogue between old and new, past and present”. There are many magical things on this disc. Like To This My Thoughts Turn All My Days, based on an anonymous melody first notated in 1742. Guðmundsson's brilliant recasting treats the tune with utter respect. The harmonies are often disarmingly simple, though the best moments have the melody confidently floating above Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Don’t be fooled by the header picture. Despite the relaxed poses, Iceland’s Pink Street Boys are amongst the angriest, loudest, most unhinged bands on the planet right now. Hits #1, their debut vinyl album – which follows distorted-sounding, lower-than-lo-fi cassette and digital-only releases – is so impolite and wild that once the rest of the world gets the message the story of what constitutes the current-day music of their home country will have to be rewritten.They are not an anomaly. Iceland is currently witnessing a groundswell of loosely punk–inspired bands drawing from the edgy spirit Read more ...
David Nice
It’s a brilliantly sunny January afternoon amidst a general drama of rain at an industrial park outside Aix-en-Provence, and members of a production team are gathering for the first time in the back yard of the festival’s rehearsal studios. Some have met earlier, and three of the five singers who’ll be arriving shortly know each other thanks to the connections already made through the European Network of Opera Academies. But it’s a journey into the unknown with ENOA’s fifth anniversary co-production, which will only reach its proper beginning in tonight’s Aix premiere, and hopefully develop Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A slim 69-year-old man in a rumpled sports jacket looking like a gone-to-seed history lecturer with the colour-clash dress sense of Michael Portillo is gripping a microphone so hard it’s a wonder it hasn’t been crushed. He is barking lyrics in Icelandic so gruffly that this could be any Celtic or Nordic language.This is Megas – born Magnús Þór Jónsson – the Icelandic poet, singer and cultural icon who has been ploughing this particular and peculiar furrow since the early Seventies and, in 1977, helped kick-start Icelandic punk. In Iceland, he is an enduring presence.Here, at the 1920’s cinema Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
As vaporous as the haze on its cover, the sound of Kiasmos resonates like clouds sweeping across low mountain peaks, intermittently breaking into a storm or opening to reveal wan sunlight. Although firmly within the boundaries of electronica, the self-titled debut instrumental album by Kiasmos still beats with an organic heart.There are touches of a Balearic pulse on “Looped”, a pattering glitchiness on “Lit” and even a hard house beat opening and punctuating the acid-esque “Swayed”. But live drums, grand piano, viola, violin and cello temper the wash of electronics and softly throbbing Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Twelve minutes into the Icelandic film Of Horses and Men something occurs on screen which was obviously going to happen, but actually seeing it happen is astonishing. It’s something which would normally either occur off screen or be alluded to. Of Horses and Men has many such uncomfortable moments. It’s also funny, heart-warming and poignant – a one-off.Of Horses and Men is set and filmed in rural Iceland. About the residents of a valley, their loves and their symbiotic relationship with their equine companions, it draws parallels between the behaviour of horse and human. What the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Kraftwerk closing a festival is a big deal. It’s an even bigger honour when the seminal German outfit reconfigure their set to acknowledge where they’re playing. Last Sunday, Kraftwerk performed the rarely heard “Airwaves”, from 1975’s Radioactivity album, within the honeycomb-windowed Harpa concert hall. They were paying tribute to Iceland Airwaves, the remarkable festival which was drawing to a closeOver five days, Kraftwerk were joined in capital city Reykjavík by more international names for the festival – John Grant, Anna von Hausswolff, Midlake, Savages, Omar Souleyman, Villagers. And Read more ...
Serena Kutchinsky
While Lady Gaga’s conceptual antics left the crowd cold in Camden last Sunday, Björk’s Ally Pally spectacular last night showcased the musical artistry that sets her so far above other female pop pretenders. While Gaga’s affected oddities have always jarred with the mainstream sensibilities of her music, Björk’s strangeness perfectly fits and feeds her sound.In a career spanning almost four decades, the Icelander has matured from a punkish techno popper into one of music’s great innovators. A status confirmed by the global success of Biophilia – a twisted musical show and tell which boasts a Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The last album released by Iceland’s múm was Early Birds, an archive trawl from 2012 which unearthed previously unheard material recorded between 1998 and 2000. Before that was 2009’s Sing Along to Songs You Don't Know. Smilewound is a comeback, and a welcome one. It’s also a statement of who múm are and closer in sound to an early album like Finally We Are No One than the – for them – relatively grandiose …Songs You Don't Know.For Smilewound, múm’s core duo Gunnar Örn Tynes and Örvar Þóreyjarson Smárason are reunited with founder member Gyða Valtýsdóttir. Kylie Minogue also crops up. Despite Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
In the video made to accompany “One Half”, Julianna Barwick meets her inner goddess in a deserted multi-storey car park. When she closes her eyes, everything that is ordinary melts away and is replaced by a landscape that is as colourful as the previous scene is monochrome.It is as good a visual metaphor as any for the sonic web spun by Barwick on this third full-length album, which is itself half a world away from the bedroom recordings that have characterised much of her work to date. For Nepenthe - a title which calls to mind the ancient Greek “drug of forgetfulness” used to wipe out grief Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Characterising a country’s music by its most successful exports or what seem to be typical local styles is inevitable. With Iceland, the home of Björk and Sigur Rós, it’s easy to assume that ethereality, otherworldliness and plain oddness rule the roost. Of course, that’s not the case. The artists awarded the Kraumur prize for the best albums released in 2012 testify to Iceland’s broad musical palette. On the next page, our look at the Kraumur winners ranges from the hotly-tipped Ásgeir Trausti to, among other surprises, home-grown reggae.Scandinavia as a whole doesn’t always escape similar Read more ...