Album Review
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Eitt
I was taken aback when I first started listening to this album, which manages to simultaneously sound like a score for an unmade film, theatre music and meditation music. I really started enjoying it when out walking, as it provided the perfect…
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Psych Fuck
Although not quite of it, Singapore Sling are a constant in the Icelandic music scene. As trends cycle from hip-hop to krútt to metal to techno and back again, Sling comfortably rest on the outskirts, eternally gazing into the void through dark…
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Höfnin Hljómar – Electronic Music From Iceland
Released for a recent Airwaves, ‘Höfnin Hljómar’ (or ‘Harbor Sounds’) is a sampler of some of Iceland’s experimental electronic musicians. “Sampler” is putting it lightly, as the wide variety of techniques and outcomes on the fourteen-track album range from “The Harbour V2,”…
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Few More Days To Go
Fufanu evolved out of Captain Fufanu, a two-piece techno production team that rose to prominence in Reykjavík’s electro scene at the beginning of the decade. Opting to ditch the mixing deck for a backing band, Fufanu churn out sparse, distorted post-punk on…
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‘Icelandick’
So, there’s an anonymous, experimental electro-R&B group called Vaginaboys, and they have an EP out entitled ‘Icelandick’. I feel like, you know, what more information could you possibly need on the subject, but as Vaginaboys are clearly setting out to perfect some…
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5
The jazz quartet ADHD has a stellar track record for quality and consistency. Their latest release, ‘5’, is no different, and like their other recordings, is conveniently labeled numerically for easy reference! The song structures are tight, consisting of almost minimal phrases…
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Epilepsy EP
Let’s be straight from the start on this one: it’s not all indie-rock, quite often it’s the other way around; “Brick Thief”, the final track on this grower of an EP, provides more crunch than you’d anticipate from the Big Country-ish opener…
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‘Í hnotskurn’
Formed in 1978, Fræbbblarnir is considered one of Iceland’s first punk rock bands, paving the way for the great punk wave of the early 80s. There’s a memorable moment in ‘Rokk í Reykjavík’, director Friðrik Þór’s fabled document of the fledgling Reykjavík…
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Vettlingatök
Æla was formed in a garage somewhere on the Reykjanes peninsula by four guys who wanted to sound like Purrkur Pillnikk (that legendary punk band fronted by Sugarcube Einar Örn). They quickly drew notice for their on-stage energy, winning over many an…
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Destrier
There are some high-quality moments on ‘Destrier’—the play with harmonics (and is that a Tartini tone I hear?) for the intro/outro; or from the 2:30 mark onward on “Dark Water,” for instance. The latter example highlights the technical skill on the part…
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Clockworking
The new record from Icelandic chamber music ensemble Nordic Affect showcases new works combining historical performance traditions with fresh new sounds. In addition to familiar instruments like the violin and viola, the group plays the traverso (a wooden flute), tthe harpsichord, and…
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Umleikis
Composer/violinist Una Sveinbjarnardóttir’s new album of violin solos is titled ‘Umleikis’, or “playing around.” Una is best known for her role in the Icelandic Symphony, performing and recording for countless national and international pieces. Originally intending to make an album of old…
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Double Slit
Some years ago there was an Icelandic band named Lada Sport, that was one of many mainstays in our local grassroots music scene. Despite having a few hits, such as “The World Is A Place For Kids Going Far,” they eventually split,…
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Mainland
I put on Lily The Kid’s EP, ‘Mainland’, early in the morning. As Lilja’s ethereal voice emerged, a housemate remarked that it was “perfect morning music.” “Unless this gives way to a wrenching punk scream— for all we know,” I smarmily replied.…
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Rökrétt Framhald
On Grísalappalísa’s debut album ‘Ali’, there’s a line in “Lóan er komin” where singer Baldur Baldursson growls, “Thoroughly thought out/Much practiced/Stolen from here or there/Don’t expect that I take responsibility or remember where it came from” (translation mine). As a lyric-asM.O., it…
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Unortheta
‘Unortheta’ is a forty-minute frisson full of looming doom, blasting fury, and cavernous bellows that seem to emanate from the deep, below. [bandcamp width=100% height=120 track=1657488719 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small] The record’s atmospheric palette ranges from the ethereal to the oppressive,…
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Í Sporum Annara
Logn come screaming through the gates with a vicious noise attack egged on by a pair of voices battling to out-aggress one another, like two demons in thumbscrews howling insults at their tormentors. The instruments flail about in a barely controlled cacophony…
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Rivers & Poems
A collaboration between Frosti Jónsson and Japanese ambient drone artist Nobuto Suda, this four-and-a-half track suite falls deeply into the territory of epictronica. It all begins with the water-trickling, expanding pad sounds of “Flumine,” the music yawning awake as a brand new…
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I Got A Feeling
The opening track “Like A Bird” is well-named because it really does resemble the output of Mr. Oizo of Flat Beat fame. The blobby beats and tinkly top-end of “Throw It Away,” married to an insistent beat and strange squeezebox-esque sound, are…
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Apeshedder
Glitchy synths, ambient interludes, and dreamscape pop: that’s ‘Apeshedder’ in a nutshell. What that doesn’t tell us about, of course, is the shimmering flourishes with which, for example, “Harmala” gleefully ends. Or the funtime trippiness of the spacey, cushiony “Ootz.” Or the way that track’s beat crumbles and stumbles toward drum &…
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We Came As We Left
The Bandcamp blurb for ‘We Came As We Left’, the second EP by Buspin Jieber (aka Murya, aka Guðmundur Ingi Guðmundsson) opens with the statement “Some call it Retro-Wave or even Retro-Futurism—we call it good music.” To that I can only say,…
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Mono Lisa
Quickly following the late March release of an EP called ‘Acid Eclipse’, electronic musician Daveeth has released his first full-length album, ‘Mono Lisa’. Daveeth, Akureyri native Davíð Hólm Júlíusson, has released several EPs since 2004. The new album is a genre-defyingly eclectic…
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Snapshots
While Anton Kaldal Ágústsson has released quite a bit of music as Tonik over the years, ‘Snapshots’ is his debute venture as Tonik Ensemble. The album is centred on the concept of synaesthesia, a condition wherein sounds involuntarily evoke an experience of…