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Reykjavik Gets Tropical
The saxophonist for Zappa Plays Zappa provided us with one of the most surreal, and possibly precognizant, quotes in the history of the Grapevine: he asked us if Iceland was “quite tropical” like Hawaii. Maybe he was addicted to the science magazine…
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Harp Inspires Hyperbole
There was art in the air. Everybody was wearing woollen sweaters and scarves or hats or drapes they had ripped down to sew a gown. The first act of the evening was Slowblow, a band who personifies the word arty. Slowblow started…
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Sleater-Kinney Interview
The Riot Grrl threesome of Carrie Brownstein, Janet Weiss and Corin Tucker, collectively known as Sleater-Kinney has been touring Europe in support of the latest release, The Woods. The act will perform at club NASA in Reykjavík, on the 4th of June.…
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Adem – Love and Other Planets
What a terrible name for an album. Oh well, at least it’s more interesting than the music on it. Bland, indecisive acoustic lo-fi folk sludge riddled with half-hearted sappiness, it drifts through its forty-odd minutes with the enthusiasm of a kidney-stone sufferer…
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Sólstafir – Masters of Bitterness
Sólstafir present a somewhat outdated vision of metal with this, their first full-length album, with dissatisfyingly shallow sounds and chords, but still manage to convey their chosen imagery of frozen Northern wastes populated only by the souls of the damned fairly well.…
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Miri – Fallegt þorp
Wordless progressive noise mixed with a surprisingly warm pallet of emotions and laced with intricate, mesmerising and often stunningly beautiful guitar work, Fallegt Þorp is a true gem, the type of EP that leaves you wishing for a full-length release. The oddly…
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Mugison – Little Trip
Mugison’s sonic companion to Baltasar Kormákur’s most recent attempt at filmmaking is rather like Ally Sheedy’s character in The Breakfast Club: Moody, tormented, dirty, unpredictable and while occasionally so pretentiously quirky that it makes one groan in exasperation, intriguing, inviting and altogether…
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Sigur Rós
Two and a half months after the release of Takk, and with their album making a range of best of 2005 lists, Sigur Rós returned to play the largest concert in Iceland to feature Icelandic talent since Björk’s Debut release concert in…
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Psapp – The Only Thing I Ever Wanted
Exactly what you’d expect from a pair of young women obsessed with cats, cheesy synthesisers and vapid sonic gimmickry: Awful. The beer goes to the only thing saving it from being the absolute worst ever: A sudden transformation into a conventional pop…
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Fantastic Four – Original Melody
“Not too much stress…simple rhythms, nice melodies…just makes me feel good, you know what I’m sayin’?”…or so quoth an anonymous gentleman in a sample in the closing moments of the third track, and he’s pretty much right on the money. But while…
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French Kisses and Fucking Media People
At 30 years of age, I am easily in the oldest tenth percentile at most shows I attend. But not at Iggy and the Stooges. People in attendance were more or less three generations removed from the median concert audience, with a…
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Jet Black Joe – Full Circle
Despite its tendency to veer towards insipid clichés and some very dumb lyrics, Jet Black Joe’s return to the studio is tight, powerful and inspirationally short, relying mostly on straightforward rock melodies and brisk performances rather than succumbing to the complacent narcissism…
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Good Morning, Mr. Spencer
It’s afternoon here, 9 am in New York. The man on the other end of the line is a regarded as a hero of rock music, as the man who found and gave RL Burnside and Mississippi Blues to college kids throughout…
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Ókind – Hvar í Hvergilandi
Hvar Í Hvergilandi has a split personality. It is at times a focused, soaring and lyrically perceptive piece of apocalyptic rock blessed with the ability to veer from finely-crafted fanciness to scathing, angst-ridden forthrightness in no time flat, while at other times…
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Islands – Return to the Sea
With members sporting names as pretentious as Neil Diamonds and J’aime Tambour, one would have expected something a little more gripping from Islands, but they seem to be content to rely on their reputations as former members of Indie ‘greats’ The Unicorns…
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The Melting Pot in a Cold, Cold Place
If you’ve ever wondered what the outer space colonies man will one day establish may look like, then Ísafjörður in winter might be for you. A rustic, spartan island of civilisation in a barren, desolate, snow-covered ocean of nothingness, its very existence…
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Happy Trumps Cool And a peculiar sex analogy closer
The Wedding Present play catchy indie rock with lyrics that are really honest and are only about love or about not being in love (which kind of implies being in love). Everybody in music is always talking about how “you can’t just…
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Only the Voice is Childlike
If you’ve heard her once, you know the voice. Fragile, playful, original and, okay, childlike, Joanna Newsom sings of sleeping all day, of sprouts and beans, and on first listen you know you’re in the company of something altogether different. Her first…
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The Quota on Bagpipe Salsa: Infinite
The first real day of summer in Reykjavík was about to end and I headed out to NASA to the Rite of Spring festival with almost no idea what to expect. The programme for the evening included the jazz trio Flís featuring…
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Aldrei Fór Ég Suður
The third annual Aldrei Fór Ég Suður music festival will return to the remote town of Ísafjörður, Saturday the 15th of April. The festival’s name, which translates to ‘I Never Went South’ is borrowed from a song title by Bubbi Morthens, a…
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Heady Days in Austin, Texas
The South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas is now the American music industry hotspot for signing the next media darling. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Shins, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, any range of four-star pop have broken in at…
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An Evening of Listening and Restraint
José González’s reputation may well have preceded him, given that he recently played a show at the Iceland Airwaves festival, which has become an “I was there” sort of moment in Icelandic musical annals. Before the night’s show started I caught snippets…
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The Acoustic Black Flag Disciple (from the land of Abba)
/// Your first album (Veneer) was released in 2003; when can we expect the next one? – I am working on it on and off. I have been so busy touring, and it takes me a long time to write so I…