Photo by Kai Mueller.
Ah Iceland, endless wilderness, impressive glaciers and Sigur Ros falsetting away in front of a waterfall. This is the image that most people still connect with the island in the North Atlantic. Thankfully, there’s much more, the music is lively and different especially from the capital Reykjavik. It’s like Dublin in many ways; urban, dirty and no one cares about glaciers.
There’s an insanely active music scene that covers all types of sounds from metal to singer/songwriter to electro. Icelandic music is well-known worldwide, and the scene incredibly huge compared to the size of the country. Think Hard Working Class Heroes set in Mordor.
Iceland Airwaves takes place for five days every year in October. In a country where the only way to tour is via plane, for many Icelandic bands it’s the only time to perform with international artists (this year included Sinead O’Connor, James Murphy and Beach House, amongst others), to an international crowd.
Besides the shows in the official festival venues (which include 19th century restaurant Iðnó, the Reykjavik Arts Museum and the newly opened concert hall Harpa at the harbour), bands will play hostels, cafes and record stores all over town, sometimes four or five times during the festival. It’s easy to wander from one end of the main street Laugavegur to the other on any Airwaves-afternoon and find 10 shows happening simultaneously – and if you discover an Icelandic band that you like, there’s a good chance you’ll see them again.
The first band on my list were latin-pop youngsters Retro Stefson, who had the huge crowd at the huge stage eating out of their hands. It seems that the songs from their first album “Kimbabwe” have become big hits in Iceland, and the audience were happily dancing and singing along, and even forming conga lines.
Next to Bakkus, a grimy bar next to the arts museum with the cheapest pints in Reykjavik, aptly serving Polar Beer. The entertainment was provided by Sindri Eldon, the son of Bjork, playing very accessible lo-fi punk rock.
The festival held a tribute show for Icelandic electro legend Biogen, who died earlier this year, in the newly re-opened venue named Faktorý. The venue boasts a cozy first-floor-stage and excellent sound, which befits the fact that most of the festivals electro-acts played here. Futuregrapher displayed some tai-chi-like stage-antics to keep the crowd entertained during his set.
Friday’s line up started with the mighty Mugison in the newly opened concert hall Harpa. Mugison, a former fisherman, has toured with QOTSA and has become something like the Icelandic Tom Waits, complete with long beard, wide-brimmed hat and a waistcoat on stage. The crowd were treated to a best of playlist with Mugison mixing it up with the newer songs. The first single from his new album, the eponymous Haglei sounded more like a Johnny Cash-track than the melodic pop-song that is the recorded version. The set finished with a mean, belched-out version of Murr Murr, which sounded very White Stripes-like and made all the audience sway. All.
Next to Bakkus to watch the very drunken show of art rock band, Reykjavik!. The band were celebrating the release of their new album “Locust Sounds” and guitarist’s Valdi’s birthday, so the band were handing out shots and shrieking out songs by the busload. Singer Boas got bored on stage and climbed over the nearby bar and hung himself from the speakers. Very sweaty and very good.
Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds played on Saturday (he also played a set in the same hall as Mugison they day before). He brought his usual four-piece string quartet, but to everyone’s delight Bloodgroup-frontman Janus was setting up his own array of laptops and mixers on stage. The additional layer of sound and programming made the whole set much livelier and the spherical songs sound much more diverse than on record. Ólafur himself seemed to enjoy it all, joking with the audience in Icelandic and English and introducing his fellow musicians – his demure stage behaviour a thing of the past, seemingly. A very enjoyable show of one of the best contemporary Icelandic composers.
On Saturday night Sudden Weather Change played at Iðnó, the 19th-century restaurant/venue next to the city pond. The band has moved away from the three-guitar-wall of noise that was their debut album “Stop! Handgrenade in the name of crib death ‘nderstand” and added programming and loops to their sound, which takes some of the raw edge away, but makes their music much more comprehensible. So maybe this is the next logical step for their sound – the crowd, including many members of local music gentry like Jonsi and Ben Frost, were more than pleased.
Sunday was reserved for one artist only: Björk and her “Biophilia”-show, the official multimedia-spectacle accompanying the release of her latest album (which is also an iPad-app), again at Harpa.
On a stage in the middle of the sold-out main concert hall, open to all sides, Björk placed herself amidst her choir, a group of Icelandic girls clad in blue and gold. Björk was sporting the enormous headpiece from the Biophilia-cover. Just as on the album, all songs were introduced by the disembodied voice of Sir David Attenborough. For the first song Thunderbolt, a large cage containing two Tesla coils was lowered from the ceiling and switched on. The lighting shooting between the coils produced the bass line for the song. Making music with electricity, nice.
For the next hour and a half, auntie Gudmunsdottir was the proverbial crazy old woman on stage, a herb woman tip tapping around to gather ingredients for her music, borrowing some drum patterns from percussionist Manu Delago, a melody from Jons Sims at the keys, and finally concocting her sound-brew with the help of the choir and her iPad. Huge screens on all sides of the stage showed the doings of the “Biophilia”-apps in coordination with the songs played. Two hours and an album later, she and her hair piece from hell hopped off stage, shoe-less after the encores of Medulla and the crescendo of Declare Independence. She uttered a final “Declare Independence! Thanks!” and was gone.
But I was happy to have met her, the crazy elf-mother of apps and melodies and all the other beer-wielding Viking artists of Iceland Airwaves 2011. I will be back.
Marcel Krueger
How to get there:
Iceland has impressive glaciers and Reykjavik has one of the best nightlifes in Europe? You can combine both with the best Icelandic music at the Airwaves festival every year. The 2012 edition will take place from October 31 – November 4, and you can get tickets via the official website.
In autumn, there are no direct flights from Dublin, but it’s easy and cheap to fly to London and take an Iceland Express-flight from Gatwick.
One of the best and cheapest places to stay in Reykjavik (if you don’t like hostels) are Einholt Apartements right off the far end of Laugavegur.
