Iceland
Kieron Tyler
The surprises linger longest. The things you’re not prepared for, the things of which you’ve got little foreknowledge. Lykke Li’s Wounded Rhymes was amazing, and she was equally astonishing live, too. Fleet Foxes's Helplessness Blues was more than a consolidation on their debut and The War On Drugs’s Slave Ambient was a masterpiece. But you already knew to keep an eye on these three. Things arriving by stealth had the greatest impact.This year, music again proved it has the power to surprise. Terrific albums from unknown quantities (of varying degrees) like Rayographs, Huntsville (from Norway Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Iceland is remote. Strategic too. Vikings stopped off there on the way to North America. It hosted the Reagan-Gorbachev summit 25 years ago. On the anniversary, visitors from America, Canada and across continental Europe are in Reykjavík for the 13th annual Iceland Airwaves. Over its five days the festival brings an extraordinary range of music to Iceland’s capital. Three years on from the country’s financial meltdown, Iceland remains strategic. Culturally strategic.Reykjavík, though, is small. Walking from the dockside to the fringes of the built-up area takes 20 minutes. The city's streets Read more ...
Joe Muggs
An album that encompasses pan-global collaborations, iPad/Phone apps, internet jiggery-pokery, art installations, live multimedia shows and even a tuning system, with the “Ultimate Edition” of the album coming complete with a set of tuning forks to demonstrate this. As ever, Björk Guðmundsdóttir is showing no shortage of ambition. But is it any good?The unimaginative answer is: yes, if you like that sort of thing. Björk sounds so completely unlike anyone else, and so standard criteria don't apply. There is a notably meditative air to many of the tracks, though, as demonstrated on the opening Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Björk’s Biophilia is a five-headed organism: the album (itself issued in five different editions), the app, the documentary, the live show and the website. Here in Harpa, Reykjavík’s spanking-new concert hall, Björk is in her home town, delivering the live show, performing the music. She’s playing residencies rather than touring. Instruments have been specially made. A giant spark arcs between two Tesla coils. Four massive pendulums swing.Manchester’s Campfield Market Hall snagged the premiere in June, and now her residency in Reykjavík has begun. Last night – timed to coincide with the Read more ...
David Nice
After three days' motoring and clambering around the most awesome natural landscapes I've ever seen, how could a mere concert hall in a city the size of Cambridge begin to compare? Well, it helped that the façades in which that great visionary Olafur Eliasson played his part evoke basalt columns on coast and islets, that the welcoming red interior of the Eldborg Concert Hall references the age-old lava flows of an extinct volcano we'd just climbed and that the shifting light which always strikes new visitors to Iceland plays its part in the daily drama of "Harpa", as the harbourside arts Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Ólafur Arnalds used to drum for a hardcore band called Fighting Shit. But since 2007 he’s produced a string of achingly emotive CDs that integrate sparse piano, keening strings and subtle electronic texture. He’s Icelandic and, inevitably, his instrumental music is usually described as evoking empty landscapes and long stretches of darkness. But judging by last night's concert, his sunny outlook, affability and humour cut dead all thoughts of dark nights of the soul feeding his muse.A stately piano piece, based around a series of repeated and building arpeggios titled "Poland" wasn’t a Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Certain Nordic countries are identified with particular forms of music. Norway and Finland are the home to various strands of metal. Sweden’s pop songwriters and producers are world-renowned, attracting the likes of Britney Spears to Scandinavia. Iceland homes individualists like Björk and Sigur Rõs. Denmark’s influential Mew and Efterklang capture mood like no one else. But you won’t find any of this on the new three-CD set Beginner's Guide to Scandinavia.It’s a challenging remit. Beginner's Guide to Scandinavia is part of a series of Beginner's Guides, preceded by Beginner's Guide to Read more ...
graeme.thomson
Even taking into account Britain's currently insatiable appetite for the literary, cinematic and televisual output of our Nordic friends, the notion of an “award-winning Icelandic comedy” still sounds a little like one of those lame gags designed to play upon a nation's reputation for batting above average in the international suicide stakes. The pedigree of The Night Shift , however, is no joke. Sadly, it transpired last night that its contents were also no laughing matter.A 12-part comedy show which earned numerous plaudits in Iceland when first shown in 2007, The Night Shift (Næturvaktin) Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Pål Moddi Knutsen is from Senja, an island off north Norway’s west coast. Inside the Arctic Circle, it’s so far north as to be all but adjacent to the borders with Sweden and Finland. Due east, Murmansk is less than half the distance of Oslo. It’s no surprise that Moddi’s debut album evokes solitude, the endless light, the unbroken night and the contemplation that has to come with the territory.Accordion is his lead instrument. He also plays acoustic guitar. Floriography was produced in Reykjavik by Valgeir Sigurðssun, who has filled out the sound with gentle strings, pattering percussion, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Oslo’s annual by:Larm festival celebrates Nordic music. Over the three days, just under 180 acts play Norway's capital: 142 are Norwegian, 15 are Swedish, with single figures each for Iceland, Denmark, Finland and even Greenland. Time presses, and hard choices have to be made about what to see. This year, by:Larm also hosted the inaugural Nordic Music Prize, awarded to Iceland’s Jõnsi, for his recent album Go. Overjoyed, but overwhelmed, in reaction he said little more than, “Thank you so much, I’m really bad at this.”HRH the Crown Prince Haakon Magnus of Norway presented the award. Quoting Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
There’s a moment during Hjaltalín’s encore when bolero rhythms take over and you wonder if the Reykjavik septet have invented a new musical hybrid: a Ravel-driven makeover of Seventies-slanted soul. As singer Sigrídur Thorlacius lets rip on the thrillingly anthemic “Feels Like Sugar”, it’s clear that Hjaltalín aren’t bothered with current musical templates. They take from the unlikeliest sources, smoosh them together and end up sounding like no one else. After all, this is a band with a stand-up bassoon player. At home, they topped the charts covering a song by Icelandic disco star and Read more ...
theartsdesk
This month's top releases are headed up by a brilliant covers album by Brazilian singer Seu Jorge, and the Manic Street Preachers and Richard Thompson on peak form. Elsewhere there is South African pianist Kyle Shepherd, Argentinian "eccentric mystic" Axel Krygier and dance music from Underworld and Superpitcher and "like a Humberside Randy Newman" Paul Heaton. Reviewers are Sue Steward, Joe Muggs, Russ Coffey, Peter Culshaw, Kieron Tyler, Marcus O'Dair, Bruce Dessau and Howard Male.CD of the MonthSeu Jorge and Almaz Seu Jorge and Almaz (Now Again Records)by Sue Steward"Errare humanum est” is Read more ...