So last month, local technical death metal band OPHIDIAN I won the annual WACKEN METAL Battle at Harpa Concert Hall.
Of course myself and GV intern John (Random Quote. “Oh Maaaaaan! I so fucking stoked for this! METAL!!”) went along to check out the proceedings.
You can read about it all HERE. And while you’re reading it you can also hear the madness that comes from their brains below….
I see you everyday, you walk the same way
Weekender
You go to work, Friday is payday
Weekender
Give it up, give your wife up
Weekender
Weekender – weekender
Go out, have a good time
Weekender – weekender
Go out have a good, good – good, good time
What you say weekender, we can work it out
We’ll work it all out
Don’t you hate, hate what you are
I’ll give it up, I’ll give it to you, you
Come on weekender, we’ll go out,
We’ll have a good, the best times
Right weekender, hows about we work it out
Weekender we could have such a good time
Show you, help you, a better way, a better day
A better way, A better life – weekender
Right, weekender we’re going out
You wash, blow dry your hair
New shoes, new suit
Oh, I say you look so super
Weekender you’re looking good
Don’t you hate, don’t you hate what you are
Weekender
Don’t you hate what you are I ask, I ask you
Weekender
Look around, don’t you feel a clown
Weekender,
fuck Off, Fuck off and die – I’m hating you
I hate you – goodbye
I’m slipping, weekender – weekender
Slipping down – down
Weekender weekender
Go out have a good time – the best time
Go away – away away away – sit back
Let it flow
Just like a little (have a good time)
Have a good time, have a good – good time
No work just party – party!
You got a new skirt, you got a new suit
Saved your life for a two day flirt boy
You pay the price coz Monday sure does hurt
Tell at work your weekend tale
Still need the pleasure of dirty sale
Monday’s back – what can you do?
Been away. Been away. You’ve seen a lot wow, wow
Weekender whatever you do – just make sure what
ya doing makes you happy
Because some of us need a reason to escape “The Long Silence” of a shit, grinding, dead-end job that does its best to drag us down….
“At the same time, it’s rather striking how “rock’n’roll” — not in any musical sense but as an abstract spirit (“rockstar”-ness: heedless hedonism, hard partying, not giving a fuck about the cost or consequences, inordinate self-regard) is draped all over current pop.(Hence the various songs referring to “Jagger”). Particularly with the endless stream of songs that espouse a kind of apocalyptic hedonism, hit after hit about how this could be my last night my last cup, gonna drink like it’s my last night, baby we don’t have tomorrow, Britney’s “Till the World Ends” (co-written by Ke$ha)… and then you think of Rihanna’s cheerless “Cheers” – Dionysian Keith Richards/Guns N’Roses darkside thrillseeking with some recession precarity desperation chucked in (max out those credit cards, live like there’s no tomorrow just like those fuckers in Wall Street). After a few drinks too many myself I tweeted that Ke$ha is our Jim Morrison but I kind of meant it–she is responsible for a lot of the new reckless get-wrecked spirit in music. (The word “fight” appears obsessively in her songs, a deliberate echo of her heroes the Beastie Boys and “fight for your right to party”). There were moments last year when most of the Top 40 seemed to be singing variations on: “well, I woke up this morning, I got myself a beer/the future’s uncertain, and the end is always near.”
Simon Reynolds – “End of year Faves 2011″
“In the 21st century, there’s an increasingly sad and desperate quality to pop culture hedonism. Oddly, this is perhaps most evident in the way that R&B has given way to club music. When former R&B producers and performers embraced dance music, you might have expected an increase in euphoria, an influx of ecstasy. Yet the digitally-enhanced uplift in the records by producers such as Flo-Rida, Pitbull and will.i.am has a strangely unconvincing quality, like a poorly photoshopped image or a drug that we’ve hammered so much we’ve become immune to its effects. It’s hard not to hear these records’ demands that we enjoy ourselves as thin attempts to distract from a depression that they can only mask, never dissipate.
“A secret sadness lurks behind the 21st century’s forced smile. This sadness concerns hedonism itself, and it’s perhaps in hip-hop—the genre that has been most oriented to pleasure over the past 20-odd years—where this melancholy has registered most deeply. Drake and Kanye West are both morbidly fixated on exploring the miserable hollowness at the core of super-affluent hedonism. No longer motivated by hip-hop’s drive to conspicuously consume—they long ago acquired anything they could have wanted—Drake and West instead dissolutely cycle through easily available pleasures, feeling a combination of frustration, anger, and self-disgust, aware that something is missing, but unsure exactly what it is. This hedonist’s sadness—a sadness as widespread as it is disavowed—was nowhere better captured than in the doleful way that Drake sings, “we threw a party/yeah, we threw a party,” on Take Care’s “Marvin’s Room”.”
Mark Fisher - The Secret Sadness of the 21st Century: Mark Fisher recommends James Blake’s Overgrown
Perhaps It’s my non-stop march to middle-aged decrepitude. but when reading at the above pieces, I can’t help but get a similar nagging feeling from listening to ‘Tracing Echoes,’ the current album from Bloodgroup. A review of the album is done and will be forthcoming (This review here is also worth reading), but one aspect that was only touched upon is the overwhelming sense of melancholy that pervades throughout the album. Gone is the sprightly, brash exuberance that marked their earlier work, and in its place is an identity that’s more sombre, introspective and, at times, sadder. It makes you wonder what it is that has sparked such a drastic change in them, both musically and aesthetically.
Compared to the music of their first and second albums, the music in ‘Tracing Echoes’ isn’t really suited for the dance floor. It’s heavy, oppressive and like James Blake’s ‘Overgrown,’ looks inward and experiences something of an existential crisis. It’s as if the band are looking at the environment around them and asking, albeit at times implicitly, “Is this all there is?” Tracks like “A Kings Woe” and “Disquiet” are overladen with an emotional weariness, displaying an uncertainty of themselves, that’s there something wrong with the state that we are in, but not really sure what to do about it.
It’s a feeling I too have been experiencing for some time when I now look around me in Reykjavik. Famed for the legendary “101 party spirit” immortalised in such places as Hallgrimur Helgason’s “101 Reykjavik” and god knows how any Iceland Airwaves docs, these days with Iceland being pimped as the cool capital of the world, it should be an occasion to celebrate. But there seems to be a rictus grin papered over our unabashed party times, almost as if we’re going through the motions. Painfully trendy, painfully style-obsessed and materialistic to a fault, it all reeks of an emptiness that few people are willing to admit to themselves, let alone everyone else. Obviously there is a bit of the hedonism paradox at play here, but for me ‘Tracing Echoes’ seems to capture a cultural society that’s trying to do its best to convince itself that we’re entering a new dawn and that everything will be fine with another night out, another bottle all that is needed. But it’s not working out as well as hoped.
WooooOOOooooo….
The latest instalment of NORDIC INTERSTITIAL THRESHOLD is now up and oozing through your speakers…
The weather may be nice outside, but inside, it’s hot and dark as hell….
Like what you hear? the you can download a high quality copy of the mix right HERE…
You know it’s been a while since I last did any actual reviews on this blog. Mainly because I’m often too busy running around like an idiot trying to do other things as well. But a few electronic releases have been fluttering out from several Icelandic producers over the last few months, so perhaps (since no one else is really doing it) it should be good to take a bit of stock with what’s goin’ on down in 101 Reykjavik.
THE HOUSE THAT LAGAFFE BUILT…
Whatever Flass FM, Fatboy Slim, or a hundred other publications are telling you, dubstep, Nu-trance, or the ever catchy acronym EDM is not the biggest thing in electronic music right now. In actual fact… it’s house! Yup that’s right, after residing in a quasi-underground position a decade ago, and even though it’s now been around now for so long that it’s become codified in the way that jazz and blues are, house music has come back in a huge way and is now bigger than ever. Clubs, festivals, and the charts are being fed on an ever expanding diet of Seth Troxler, Eats Everything, Disclosure, Julio Bashmore and dozens of other pretenders to the scene. Everywhere you look there’s the recursive feel of cool young things discovering house music for the first time and believing they’re discovering a new untouched sound. Aww, bless ‘em!
And in Iceland everyone is also catching onto the House spirit in a big way. One of the local labels trying to tap into this demand are LAGAFFE TALES, run by local DJs/Producers Viktor Birgisson and Jónbjörn Finnbogason. Their aim they say is to “Focus on the Deep House groove that makes us move. We aim to release and support music that makes people dance, although passionately and come together for that good feeling that it brings us.”
They’re top blokes, and their efforts in spurring a focus for house music in Iceland are to be applauded, but after listening to the last couple of releases, I would say that the quality of their output has been a bit patchy to say the least. Take their latest official release, “Feel The Night,” from Anglo-German producer SIGGATUNEZ. The opening track “Through the Night” has a simple hi-hat intro and jazz piano intro, before its tries to build on a simplistic warbling two-note pad riff. But it just feels washed out and rather bland. It fails in its first objective, which is to get you dancing, as there really isn’t much of a groove there. It also fails in being a sit and listen track as there’s not enough in the song to keep your head interested. the second track “I Feel Like A…” tries to up the ante by upping the BPM and the action on the rhythm section with rasping and clunking percussion joining the chippy hi-hats. Meanwhile a floating vocal sample gets chopped, screwed, and slotted in various areas. But again the synth sounds just sound too flat and seem to stagnate, with not enough attack to complement the rhythmic efforts.
Things though are on much surer ground with their other recent release “Long Shot Poems For Broke Players,” by local producer MOFF & TARKIN (Who funnily enough cites an old review I did of him a long ago with the comment “Some douche who did not even bother to notice that I am only one guy.” Ouch!), which remembers the prime directive when it comes to house music – It should make you want to dance.
The self-titled opening track has a simple, direct approach to house, with stabby attacking pads that form the basis for some sturdy piano led classic ’90s style house. It also helps that there’s a bit of friction with his use of vocals samples with some old geezer (Charles Bukowski?) bitching about the people around him. It’s not reinventing the jacking house wheel, but man it´s certainly got a groove thang going on.
Things get even harder on “Talking To Myself,” a hefty piece of deep house that starts off with a thudding kick beat and deep atmospherics, before it really hits with a pulsing, rolling bassline as soul vocals flit in and out of earshot. It definitely has that darkened. underground, smoky. French filter house quality to it, but the overall feel you get is one of being propelled to move, to shake, and more importantly, get a sweat on. I can really picture myself losing it to this in one of weaker moments at Dolly.
CRACKED ICELANDIC EARTH
“You know Bob, I feel that you’re more likely to give a positive review to some obscure techno bands,” said no one I’m going to tell you about a while ago, when we were discussing the finer points of Icelandic music. This caused me go a little bug-eyed and fall off my chair. You see, in the 3 and a half years I’ve been squeezing out bitter notes about the paltry efforts of local musicians, I’ve never seen the Grapevine, or the other Icelandic papers, do any actual reviews of techno music. (And no, Gus Gus does not count!).
In fact to be honest I’ve can’t really recall any out-and-out techno releases of note coming from Iceland for a while. There was a release from Exos last year, which slipped out so quietly it was like a fart in the night. I haven’t had a chance to hear that yet, but most of the local players have been either quiet, or have moved into more “song” based territory (I’m looking at you Yagya).
But over the last few months, there’s been a small flurry of activity from a younger, fresher breed of Icelandic producers that want to bring the tek-tek-tekno back onto our dance-floors in a big way. Spearheading this charge are two fine young gents, LAFONTAINE, and UNTITLED2MUSIC, who have been forging a hive of energy in creating some decidedly dark, blistering techno beats that’s shaking us from our addled floppy house torpor.
In many ways these two share similar strands of techno DNA in their influences, being that they seem to be shying away from the neon gloss of Gus Gus style tech house, or the wide open spaces of Basic-Channel influenced dub techno from the previous generation. Looking up at the above video of a recent DJ set from Lafontaine (As well as one from Untited2Music), they seem to be getting their kicks more from the darker side of the warehouse, the side of the warehouse that has you huffing in lungfuls or dry ice and getting blinded by strobing lighting, while your dodgy chemical intake makes you wobble uncontrollably to artists such as Truss, Perc, AnD, and Rrose. All heaving low-end monotone bass combined with a constant barrage of grumbling earth sounds.
Take “Mescaline,” the latest release from LaFontaine on Aura Mirror. The opening track “Peyote” has that heavy booming bass note chug and four to the floor kick thumps, with whooshing, cracking sounds that fly past your ears. Turn it up loud and it’s kinda like a jet going off. The remix by Captain Fufanu sees them try to turn the track into stuttering electro with tinny hi-hats and hi end toms pinging around a sampled clip from the original track. the musical equivalent of a badly trained monkey eating all your ecstasy.
The second track “Mescaline” is even more cavernous as it rumbles with a low lit, dark ambient throb and creaking, stretched strings before erupting into a full tilt roar that would give Raime a big chubby one. The remix by United2Music meanwhile essentially aims to add more of a swing groove to the proceedings.
As with his remix of “Mescaline,” Untitled2Music’s latest EP, “Spirit Pt 1,” also sees him looking to occupy that same dark meter. But whereas LaFontaine’s music feels more as if it was chiselled in a pressured underground cave, “Spirit Pt 1″ has that feel of empty black space, of industrial Sci Fi terror at the edge of some distant mining colony. The tracks “Decase” and “Prototype” have bridge panel alarms going off to distant ambient sounds and burbling bass lines. Meanwhile “Gates Of Hell” and “Mind” have simple cracked open perpetual machine rhythms set to some decidedly grubby drones that remind you a little of Prurient’s recent forays into techno beats.
It worth noting that while both these releases are pretty damn good and, to use the required term, banging, these guys are not quite the finished articles just yet. When listening recently to the recent releases from the likes of Function and Shifted, you can hear them add more depth and texture to their rhythms and bass sounds that just drag you deep into the darkness and eyes closed, fist pumping action. With LaFonatine and unlimited2Music, their music isn’t quite at the level where you could say the tracks “sing” to you. But they have all the fundamental components locked and bolted down, and they certainly have the right attitude when it comes to making and listening to some well proper warehouse techno. I’d expect some good things from these guys in the near future.
Best get some thoughts and stuff down….
- It´s been a day off in Iceland (As it is officially the first day of summer) and it’s been bloody freezing. weirdly noticed that everyone seemed to be loudly proclaiming and bigging up the day on the social media, which to be honest I’ve never really seen before. People before would just accept it a bank holiday and spend the day pottering about. Perhaps it’s the way of our internet lives now, where every little thing gets shouted from the rooftops, now matter how inane.
- Decided to do stuff today that would be good for the body and soul, i.e. go to the gym and write a snarky blog post about what seems to be an increasing trend to hold schmaltzy, bombastic tribute nights at places such as Harpa. There’s been the Bootleg Beatles, an ELO tribute night, a tribute night for Pink Floyd’s ’Dark side of the moon,’ with a big Eurovision song and dance event in a couple of weeks, then Stefán Hilmarsson og Eyjólfur Kristjánsson (aka Stebbi Og Eyfi) are doing a night of Simon And Garfunkel covers. All of these nights charge a minimum of 5,000Kr for tickets, with some charging 9,000Kr for the front row. I’m starting to suspect that in true materialistic fashion, many Icelanders are not so much lovers or culture, but more like grazers of kitch nonsense (And that’s before we even touch the slew of tribute nights to ’90s alt-rock acts)
- But then i decided that it was all to windy and deleted it.
- God this Icelandic election is a bit of a slog isn’t it? All this REVOLUTION, FATALISM, NEW DAWN OF POLITICS AND SOCIETY gubbins, with added smiley faces and bitcoins. Frankly I’m struggling to find a party that (If I could) I’d vote for. Either the people themselves are reprehensible, or the party ideology makes me gag. As it’s the last few says before voting, 101 is currently deluged with puggers (Political muggers), thrusting pamphlets in your face, or belting out songs and slogans saying why they’re so great. Some are doing “artistic” singing protests (Oh, how precious!). I’ll probably do a FB piece on it on Saturday then get online brickbats from the tru believers. Even got one of my comments deleted from a post today saying that there was a revolution going on in Iceland. possibly too sarky!
- Am now using Spotify. The first thing I did? Listen to this album again, 10 years after I last heard it!
- Off to this tonight. NOISEEEEEEE!
- And speaking of Drum & Bass, the deep listening continues for a new NITcast. I think I have the basics to get something started over the weekend. The usual wyrd post punk/industrial/ spacey darkness. And and I was reminded of this lovely track after listening to a special mix posted by Metalheadz in tribute to collective member Kemistry who dies in 1999. Just love the space in the track. Gives an added edge to the simple drum rhythm and that menacing bassline. RUMBLE!
Goodnight….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z-6e3zIE2k
Oh Man……
Tonight sees an event that will close the door on a club night/collective that has been one of the pivotal focal points in Iceland’s electronic music scene. I‘m talking about the boys at BREAKBEAT.IS who, after 13 long years as Iceland’s premier club/radio night, will be hosting the decks for the last time tonight in a huge, and slightly emotional, blowout at Volta. All the guys will be there. Kalli, Gunnar Ewok, Skeng, and Tryggvi, along with Suspect B and Hypno.
And the worst bit of all of this – I GOING TO MISS IT! In a few hours I will be driving off to the country with Mrs Sex Farm as it is her birthday wish that we go and see some friends and get away from Reykjavik. Man I do love her, but her timing is bloody lousy. Sigh…
Ever since I came to Iceland in 2007 I became quickly aware of their radio show on X-ið, which I found to be much more enjoyable that most of the other electronic output that’s currently being pumped out on Icelandic radio (People – I’ve tried Flass Xtra, and it is not good!). What I found especially heartening was that they were the only guys that seemed to have a true ear on playing what was happening outside of Iceland, whether it be dubstep, or the emerging juke/footwork explosion, or what was happening with grime and UK bass scene in the last few years. One of their shows from early this year had a crushing intro of Andy Stott.. and RAIME. Fucking Raime! Nobody on Icelandic radio has the awareness, let alone the balls to have something like that.
Ironically in a way, I think that the fact that they were so intent on playing new and other interesting forms of dance music put them in a difficult position with the public towards the end. People who didn’t really listen to them would calmly dismiss them as “being all drum and bass,” while some of the old guard that did listen to them lamented on the fact that they weren’t playing as much DnB as they used too! Add to this the fact that they weren’t churning out shitty house (The sound everyone wants to play/hear right now) didn’t help.
You could also tell that the writing was on the wall with regards to the radio show with the way they were treated by the schedulers over at X-ið over the last year. Starting off at 8pm on Saturdays, they were moved to 10pm (Good), then moved to Wednesdays at 10pm (Err…. why?). Then the show was cut from 2 hours to 1 hour. Fuck! Shows how much they ranked in their priorities. Obviously there wasn’t enough time in the day to hear more of The Lumineers or Muse for the 25th fucking time.
Personally, even though I was a fan, I never actually met them in the flesh until the beginning of last year when I interviewed Kalli and chief designer to the collective Ragar for the Grapevine about the release of their book Taktabrot, which they were crowdsourcing for funds. I very quickly found them both to be cool, intelligent guys and I actually found myself donating funds towards the publishing of the book. Of course their release night, which had UK producer Blawan headlining, was one of the live highlight of 2012 for me. Since then I’ve considered the entire collective to be very much friends and cultural allies,even getting Kalli & Hypno to DJ at the opening RSF club night (And a lot of fun it was too!). During this year’s Sonar, I skipped the main headliners to see Kalli and Ewok play an extraordinary set in the Car Park stage to barely 15 people. It was brilliant!
I do hope that they will be able to continue fighting the good fight for decent electronic music in Iceland in some form or another. But for now, click on the link below to hear one of their Rafio shows from earlier this year. That one with Andy Stott and Raime opening.
And make sure you go to their club night tonight! It’s going to be a Stonker!
TRACKLISTING
Kalli og Ewok með bumbur og bassa
01. Andy Stott – Sleepless (Modern Love)
02. Raime – Passed Over Trail (Blackest Ever Black)
03. Sei A – Flux (Martyn’s Electromagnetic Mix) (Turbo)
04. Darling Farah – North (Civil Music)
05. Hypno – Who You Talkin To? (Dub)
06. Drums of Death – Cold Lazarus (Starkey Remix) (Civil Music)
07. Tyler the Creator – Yonkers (Lil Silva Remix) (MPFree)
08. Pedro 123 – Jetpack Joyride (Get Some)
09. LV & Okmalumkoolkat – Safe And Sound (Hyperdub)
10. Cloaka – Don’t I Know You (Four40)
11. Auntie Flo – I Want To Blow Your Mind (Huntleys & Palmers)
12. Faze Miyake – Take Off (Faze Miyake)
13. Rival – Lock off the Rave (Darq E Freaker UItra Remix) (Pitch Control)
14. Africa Hitech – Caveman Style (Warp)
15. Doc Scott – VIP Drumz (Metalheadz)
16. Throwing Snow feat. Louis Vines – Too Polite (Local Action)
17. Louis Blaise – Love & Gwalla (Philip D. Kick Remix)
18. Dj Rashad – Da Life (Lit City Trax)
Well we have now moved into the ranks of the first world TED talkin’ digital elite, with Iceland’s cultural Illuminati collectively jizzing at the new yesterday that Spotify has now arrived in Iceland!
It was eventually going to happen. i remember asking STEF board chairman Jakob Fríimann Mangússon about it last year, only for him to dismiss it as “The last gasp desperation by the major labels in Sweden to do something about downloading,” while at the same time they were looking to trump up the fact that they had allowed Deezer into the country. Well alas no one seems to have taken them up on that offer, so it seems that with some deals were done and Spotify can now be allowed on these shores.
Naturally of course everyone is jumping on it like kids with a new toy. My local social media feed over the last 24 hours alone has been buzzing non stop with bands stating that you can play their music and people churning out quick makeshift playlists.
As for me I’ll give it a shot next weekend, but right now I´m struggling a little to find an actual use for it. To date I’ve heard many things about Spotify, both good (Massive database, allows access to a LOT of obscure music/playlists, the premium service allows Mp3 downloads) and bad (Lousy metadata searching, its suggestions algorithm is poor, shitty usability, ALL THOSE ADS!). But for me it´s all about portability. In an ideal world i could use a Spotify app for a smart phone as right now most of the music I listen to is at work on an Mp3 player, where i have minimal access to a PC/laptop. But because I apparently lead a fairly rugged life, I’ve sworn off smart phones as they cost a fortune to buy, and a fortune to replace when I inevitably break them in my pocket. So I fail to see where Spotify could help me there.
This means I’ll probably use it at times at home as a possible Youtube replacement. There have been many arguments about how much spotfy pays artists (it’s not that much in real terms), but many of the arguments seem have been based on a real lack of knowledge of how the models work when compared to more established areas such as radio (which many people seems to be using spotify as an alternative for), I suppose that this is a side product of breaking open the radio model of steaming (each play = ’000s of compulsory listens) to one where you can open up the playlist to your own devices (1 play = 1 listen only)
There are, still, some legitimate concerns about how Spotify splits up its proceeds between major labels and indies, since the majors have an equity stake. So there is a reasonable concern about fairness. There’s also the small fact that Spotify is still losing money after it pays out in royalties, so questions may need be asked about how long their investors can shoulder the losses in the long term. It doesn’t help that Spotify are experiencing a huge amount of churn in it subscription base, although that seems to be happening to other services across the streaming market.
In the end, I think I´m most likely to use it as a searcher/testing ground to see if there is something that interests me enough to buy it.. I still think that for small level/obscure musicians, it´s still important to buy their stuff, as the money they will get from the likes of Spotify, YT et al, will amount to barely penies. I suppose in time, I’ll likely find myself becoming more and more reliant on Spotify, but considering my listening tastes still consist of going to podcasts and mixes on places such as Mixcloud and Soundcloud, it looks like it will be a little while before I join in the communal jizzing of my contemporaries…
Man the world seems to be conspiring against me right now. If the filthy germs from the streets are not trying to infect my skullcase with black mucus, then it’s the fact that I seem to be acquiring tasks and responsibilities that my body/ego can’t cash. And I still have to get a present for Mrs Sex farm (She says she’s 21 on Thursday). Perhaps I will get her something more romantic than the flymo strimmer I bought her last year. Coffee mugs perhaps?
So tonight I’m pretty much spent, but before I go, there’s time to wax lyrically about tonight’s music moment man. To put it simply, I love everything that Martin Jenkins aka PYE CORNER AUDIO has done to date. He’s rarely put a foot wrong with his tape inspired outpourings of synth driven music. He may be herded in with the collective of Hauntological acts (His last album ‘Sleep Games,’ was released on Ghost Box for example), but the music contains so much more. Somehow managing to mix warped disco, with woozy space age kosmic kosmische, and proto-dance music rhythms into a collective body that seem to be looking backwards into the future.
And now he’s released the new 12inch ‘Suspicious Century,” with Boomkat Editions. Alas it’s sold out (Damn those limited vinyl snobs!), but the lead track “Vorticism,” can be heard here. That simple acid bas with some rather grand whooshes and sweeping high-end meowing pitches that seem to hang in the air. It’s all got a very early ’90s feel going on here that, even with it’s propulsive rhythms there’s an extremely chilled morning seashore vibe to it, is something that AFX could have easily made at the time. Funnily enough, that “Classic” big style chord progression made me think of it as a more floaty version of these songs of the following tracks,
It all definitely takes me back to some nice memory pools, and in a good way.
Goodnight…
A few weeks ago, I decided to go back to the site of many a troubled moment for yours truly and review once again the unsigned bands competition, Musiktilraunir. And, after some finicky editing work from the masters, the article is now available HERE at the Grapevine site to read in all it’s glory,
It wasn’t too bad an experience (although they wouldn’t allow me to walk into the venue with my beer – FASCISTS!!! etc), but this time my wingman was the ever effusive (Yet totally cynical) Birkir Fjalar, who was there to provide a second voice and some context. Birkir is actually the second person I’ve been with to this who was once a judge at the contest (The other was Sindri Eldon), so his opinions on the contest are something that people should take good notice of.
Musiktilraunir seems to have really changed now since I started laying my eyes and ears on the thing 4 years ago. Since OMAM have signed to Universal, and now Samarís have signed to One Little Indian in the UK, the contest is now seen by many people as a clear fast track to the top. Win this, and you are at least guaranteed a big shot at something. In fact the prizes this year were also shifted with pretty much the winner getting everything (Including 250,000 ISK from record label Sena), and the runners-up getting comparatively fuck all, not even a spot at Iceland Airwaves.
Because of this the acts show a more polished and professional schtick with everyone seeming to exhibit clear signs of over earnestness. In fact only the acts Skerðing or In The Company Of Men seemed to have no fucks to give about the austere sense of the occasion. A lot of the contestants are a lot older now with most being in their early/near mid ’20s (perhaps a sign of the growing delayed adulthood that most of society exhibits these days?), and the “Craft” is so much more evident now. Yes, the “Craft.” I had to explain this to my editor, being that you get people who are so proficient on their instruments, but when it comes to actually making really interesting songs or doing something that would make you sit up and take notice, they lack that certain spark. Some of the acts such as CeaseTone showed this in spades.
Indeed what was not conveyed in the review was Birkir’s views on the how the event looks and feels now compared to previous years He was frankly bored over the first half, and apart from a few acts that did interest him (Such as Kjurr), it wasn’t really raising his blood pressure that much. He noted that back in the day, many of the acts were much younger, near to the age of the kids that were in Yellow Void. He also noted that in past contests, there was also more of a sense of youthful aggression and snottiness, that they were doing things THEIR way. It was interesting to note that the GV Facebook page that day posted a video of cult ’90s Icelandic band Botnleðja performing at the contest back in 1995. the fact is that this is way rougher, harsher and brighter than what was played this year, yet I honestly think that if this band entered this year, they’d never actually reach the final.
But there were some good points. Both of us did think that for the best part, the judges got it right with the final three, especially the winners, VÖK. I do hope that they can really expand on their sound and try to do their own thing away from the meddling of many of the more established scene heads. What was impressive and made them more distinctive than Samarís was that they had better melodic hooks and a much more powerful, and more sensual vocalist. There is some real potential going on there
Ahh, perhaps all of this comes in waves. Perhaps in a year or two, we’ll see bands kick against this sterile nonsense and try to do something to stir up the established order of things. If it does, I certainly hope to be there at the front laughing my head off.
To sign off, here’s the best song from the winner Vök. I’m off to the pub now…
