Photos: Grapevine Grassroots n° 5

It’s true that at first glance the music scene in Reykjavík presents itself as very colourful and vibrant, but after a while you start noticing the patterns – the same bands and acts tend to be booked over and over again, which sooner or later might leave you with a sinking feeling of being stuck on repeat. Fortunately, once you become a bit better acquainted with what is going on in this town, it becomes much easier to sway off the beaten path and discover something fresh. So in case you’re up for some novelty, one of the events definitely worth checking out is the Grapevine Grassroots cycle, which combines up-and-coming musical talent with performance art and poetry.

It was a Tuesday evening and I already managed to see some live music before going to the fifth instalment of Grassroots at Húrra (unexpectedly it turned out that there was also a musician from Greenland playing a whole set on a gameboy at the DIY basement venue R6013). Unfortunately, I missed the poetry reading by Kristófer Páll and and also didn’t see the first band led by Marteinn Sindri who performed with Albert Finnbogason and Daníel Friðrik Böðvarsson. I was there just in time to catch K.óla play. This girl is just super cool and now she is performing with a band. It was a rich combination of beautiful, catchy vocals, hypnotising melodies and bass lines, topped with some chill beats. It’s always inspiring to see a confident young woman on stage doing completely her own thing and together with the band, they just made it work.

Next came Drengurinn fengurinn, the paper bag masked “soldier of happiness”. His performance art is all about sharing positivity, even though he also sang one of his older songs, which deals with the subject of depression. Everything was from playback, except from the singing (“Just like Eurovision!”, commented the performer himself).

Afterwards, Sindri7000 played some tracks from his Jacques Cousteau inspired release and took us on an underwater trip. Finally, the evening went fully electric when Fascia graced us with a top-notch, noisy live techno set and it only got crazier once the Teratoma dj’s showed up behind the decks. It’s very hard to stumble upon a really good and interesting techno in this town, so I was stoked.

All in all, this was a great evening and you could feel a special vibe in the air, different than the one usually present at Húrra. It was eclectic, diverse and fun and you could see the effort that the organisers put into creating such an atmosphere.

The next event of the series will take place on the 15th of May!