Words by

Hannah Jane Cohen

Photo by

Possimiste

March has arrived—can you believe it? We don’t! But with a new month brings some new music. Therefore, here’s the Grapevine picks for this week. 

Fríd – Woods

Fríd’s got an interesting dichotomy—her lyrics and melody could easily place her in the tragic love & loss singer/songwriter category (“She scurried away, way into the woods on the run from time/She felt her wrinkles forming/She must be gone for morning”) while her unexpected low key trap beats and extreme autotune pull her into that late-night comedown party vibe. Good thing we love both. HJC

Krummi – Naglar og salt

The moment this song began playing in the Grapevine office, our journalists looked down and found their hands covered in well-worked calluses and arms in that ropey sort of muscle you only get from doing a hard day’s work. At the same time, our wives left us for oil barons, the newspaper factory called to say they were closing down, and there was nought to do but sit on our distribution tractors and think about what needed to be done on the morrow. We’d have to rebuild the paper from hand, thinking only of our lost loves and accompanied only by Krummi’s new Utah Phillips cover. ‘Tis the life for an old cowboy. HJC

EYJAA – Don’t Forget About Me

Cute stuff!! Introducing sisters Brynja Mary Sverrisdottir and Sara Victoria Sverrisdottir, who compose pop duo EYJAA. Their debut single, “Don’t Forget About Me”, is a sunny, bouncy, happy-happy pop song that’ll make you long for the days of summer where you could lay outside in a bathing suit and sip green juice or something equally aspiration. Tbh, I thought the song was fine until I went to lunch and began subconsciously humming the background vocals the whole time. So yes, it’s a certified earworm. An apt song title. HJC

Possimiste – Paradise

Hallelujah! Possimiste has apparently created this sparse, boomy, bluesy, grimey gem to soundtrack our journey to the promised land. Shades of Karin Drijer and Lykke Li abound here; perhaps Paradise is somewhere Nordic. Let’s hope so. With the land to the southwest of Grapevine’s offices about to belch hot gas—and the ground beneath us rumbling—we might be making that journey sooner than we had planned. So it would be nice not to have to go too far. But what tune to take us there! HJC

Huginn – Geimfarar

“Geimarar” translates to “astronaut,” and the song definitely has that pulsing spacey feel to it—kind of like you’re being pulled helplessly around the earth by gravity except you’re like really vibing to it, if that makes sense. The chorus translates to “please don’t go”, which is actually a pretty sad thing to say to an astronaut, considering all the years of training they put in to become an astronaut. Kind of rude to ask them to stay after 12 years of studying and a pilot’s license. But whatever Huginn, it’s your spaceship and you can cry if you want to. HJC

Prins Póló/ Memfismafían/K.óla – Vetrarfrí

Some things are just right. Like beer and cigarettes. Trash food and soda. Or a warm hot tub and an icy storm. A collaboration between Prins Póló, Memfismafían and K.óla is like all of this with a freshly shaken cocktail in both hands. “Vetrarfrí” (“Winter Vacation”) is a fantastic pop song with a strong Prins Póló flavour, a dash of the ultra-cool vibes of Memfismafían and the originality of K.óla’s voice. Now that’s a cocktail that just can’t go wrong in any weather. VG

Magnús Jóhann – Sálmur fyrir Sollu systur take 3

In contrast to ‘Without Listening’, Magnús Jóhann’s newest release is a stripped-down piano-driven journey—one that wanders through octaves and progressions with an undeniable sense of resigned melancholy. Next time I sit outside in the wind holding a long-cold cup of coffee, mulling over the fateful day I chose to leave the love of my life at the airport in search of a new, ethereal, what-I-thought-would-be-fulfilling life in a far off pasture, ultimately finding that you can run away from who you are, but you’ll never hide from it and while the love of my life may have moved on to a better version of myself, I’m just stuck in the past, floating through the menial ether… I’ll listen to this song. VG

Velvet Villain – Tough Luck

If Andrew WK had brought his motivational speaking tour to Reykjavík, this catchy little beauty is the sort of hooky punky power pop he might have inspired in The Youth Of Iceland. VV’s singer Jon Gauti sings that he hasn’t figured it out, but we think he’s fibbing. Yeah you have, Jon Gauti—Andrew told you how to put together a solid, spiky rocker, you little rascal. Party Hard! JP

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