Grapevine New Music Picks: Ægir, russian.girls/bngr boy, Kraftgalli & In3dee

Autumn has truly arrived in Iceland, and the nights are fair drawing in… no better time to check out some new music! Long evenings are perfect for deep diving into an artist’s back catalogue, and luckily we’ve got some pure bangers for you to enjoy.

All these tracks—and so many more brought to you by The Grapevine over the past twelve months—are available in our New Music Picks 2021-22 playlist.

Ægir – the portal rose

the portal rose by Ægir

Ægir is one of those artists who will be incredibly well known to you if you participate in certain musical circles in Reykjavík, but outside of these he remains relatively unknown. Which is a shame, because in addition to him running the brilliant (literally) underground venue, R6013, and being widely considered as one of Iceland’s best drummers of late, he’s also showing himself to be a great electronic artist and producer. ‘the portal rose’ is in the same vein of his previous work in the sense that it’s wildly experimental and diverse. However, each release from Ægir feels like it’s getting closer to some kind of more concrete identity, or distinct sound. Tracks like opener “a snakebit horse,” where he integrates his live drumming with drum machine beats and foreboding ambient sounds take this album to a whole new level. JG

russian.girls/BNGR BOY – Allt

The song “Allt” (which translates to “Everything” in English) is a joint collaboration between the indy band russian.girls and the autotune Hip-Hop producer and phenomenon BNGRBOY (whatever you do, don’t google these names at work). The song draws out the best in these two bands; BNGRBOY offer a soulful ride through the first minutes, giving it a dramatic undertone and the promise that something more is up. And behold, something is up. The song breaks out in the final chapter with an old-school breakbeat and takes a hard U-turn, saving it from being one more unmemorable Hip-Hop song. It’s surprisingly accessible for russian.girls but pretty standard when it comes to BNGRBOY. VG

Kraftgalli – Kúlomb

Now we’re talking. Kraftgalli (literally translates to “power suit”) bring an original take on bass heavy experimental music that sometimes reminds one of the original creativity of TNT’s masterpiece, Tortoise. Fantastically odd and creative at the same time, the album feels like a futuristic retro journey through South-America. It also offers a rare treat in Samband, a 17 minute long song that one just can’t stop listening to. VG

In3dee – Margrét

Fun fact, Margrét is a real tarantula and seemingly an insanely fun techno animal at the same time. The mind behind In3dee is a heavy metal veteran, Indriði Örn Ingólfsson, who decided to go completely electronic a few years ago, and has been working with well known names in the electronic world, like Bjarni and his label, bbbbb records. The result is one of the most surprisingly fun electro albums of this year. The music is aggressive and fast. If Euro Shopper’s energy drink was an album, it would be Margrét. VG