HAMPARAT Live Review: “A Yellow Weather Alert Experience”

On March 21, perennial rock band HAM teamed up with the synthesiser-based group Apparat Organ Quartet for a once-in-a-lifetime performance dubbed HAMPARAT. This is what it felt like.

A female voice semi-whispers through the layers of white noise sounds as if it were reciting metaphysical poetry. Sat in the darkness of the grand Eldborg hall in Harpa, the audience is treated to an early 20th-century recording featuring an Icelandic psychic communicating to spirits during a seance. As the tension increases, the core of the Apparat Organ Quartet kicks off with the dramatic intro to “Síríus Alfa” from their 2010 album ​​Pólýfónía. Punctuated by guitar stabs from the HAM members Flosi Þorgeirsson and Sigurjón Kjartansson, the composition evolves into a maelstrom sweeping up everything in its path.

Each song on the setlist, containing material from both parts of the supergroup, is a yellow weather alert experience. Another track from the Pólýfónía album, “Cargo Frakt”, begins with formidable guitar riffs provided by the HAM frontline. Once the sonic storm subsides, the six organs come into play. The transition from choppy waters of heavy metal to pulsating serenity of Kraftwerk conjures up seemingly incompatible facets of Icelandic nature, which yet exist in harmony.

Synergetic forces

“They synergise,” Gísli, a 35-year-old follower of HAM, comments on the collaboration between the two influential bands. Asked about the significance of HAM in his life, he adds: “I guess to a generation older than me, it means a lot. To me, HAM is just a really cool metal band. There are not many bands in the genre that have survived. We have heroic metal (Dimma), going into sagas and mythology, whereas HAM is an honest and straightforward heavy metal without any diversions.”

Despite being straightforward, parts of the Hamparat experience have a metanarrative, obvious to the locals and easily overlooked by the foreign visitors frequently asking the former about the meaning of the lyrics. Take, for example, HAM’s grim metal ballad “Dauð Hóra”. What sounds like a song about a female sex worker draws a broader socio-political context. The lyrics are said to be loosely based on a story that happened in Reykjavík in the 1940s.

“Everyone thought that the lyrics are about a female prostitute while, in fact, it’s about a boy who moved from the countryside and lived in Reykjavík, started selling himself and eventually died from AIDS”, says Gísli. After the show, HAM singer Óttarr Proppé elaborates on the lyrics hinting at male prostitution as a metaphor for Spanish flu as well as — more broadly — innocence entering the corrupted world of capitalism.

The age diversity of the audience is more obvious during the intermission. Roughly estimated as 25 and up, the contingent of attendants are local music industry legends and fans from other realms. “I know almost everyone here!” exclaims Lárus Jóhannesson, the proprietor of 12 Tónar, hardly finding time to speak to this author between greetings and handshaking. “My relationship with the band started before the band was born. I’m sure they mean a lot to a younger generation. This music is very solid.”

Multimedia playfulness

The collaboration between HAM and Apparat Organ Quartet, covered by The Reykjavík Grapevine in the latest March issue, amplifies the key elements of both collectives. The analog keyboards and organs add gothic solemnity while the no-bullshit attitude of HAM — with their heavy riffs and growling vocals — anchor in firmness.

Still, there is always a place for playfulness. The guest appearance of Steinunn Eldflaug, aka DJ Flugvél og Geimskip, on “Konami” gave it the extra multimedia twist. In between the chorus parts where her vocals evoke the early Mew records, the artist stood still, “illustrating” the lyrics referencing Steve Jobs and Bill Gates via wooden panels depicting the logos of the respective corporations.

Finishing their two-hour set with the songs emblematic of the collectives’ heritage — Apparat Organ Quartet’s “Stereo Rock & Roll” and HAM’s “Partýbær” — the supergroup nails it. HAMPARAT has to be one of the most striking shows at Harpa, strangely resonating with “The Miners’ Hymns” premiered here in 2014 — a score to the eponymous Bill Morrison’s film composed by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, once a member of both bands.