I know I know, I’m late for this one. I’m currently moving so life has been insane lately, but I failed to update the Airwaves page as well as say that they now have added 25 more bands, 20 of which appear to be Icelandic. I’ve really got my work cut out for me as I plan creating an aggregate source for each and every Icelandic band doing Airwaves this year. Hopefully I get moved in quick enough to even attempt to get caught up.
So which Icelandic bands have been added?
Ólafur Arnalds, Sólstafir, Prins Póló, RetRoBot, The Vintage Caravan, Borko, Kontinuum, Samaris, Ophidian, I, Himnalaya Angist, Low Roar, Nolo, UMTBS, Lord Pusswhip, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Blood Feud, and Magnoose.
Non Icelandic bands include Yo La Tango, El Rojo Adios, TAPE, Carmen Villain, Moon King, and the Jacob Juhkam Bänd.
As always, you can enter your email and follow my blog, and of course if Airwaves is something you’re even thinking of doing, you should go to the Iceland Airwaves website and subscribe to their mailing list. It’s non-intrusive, but will let you know right off what’s going on.
I will update my Airwaves page with the Icelandic Artists websites/Facebook/Gogoyoko profiles later this week, but until then, here is their Spotify and Soundcloud playlist, which you can always find on my Iceland Airwaves 2013 post.
The lovely Lay Low, who features in Iceland Defrosted, is performing a live concert from her home in Iceland on Saturday May 4th, and this can be seen on the Inspired by Iceland website. I will definately be tuning in.
Monks done got dark, that’s the first thing that came to mind on my virgin listen to AMFJ. With dark, heavy and industrial instrumentals topped with AMFJ blasting over the top with aggressive high energy rants, creating powerfully violent noise rock.
AMFJ is one man, Aðalsteinn Jörundsson, and his project began in 2008. Just him, some loops and a lot of feedback smothered with powerful and aggressive vocals that bounce and shock the beats, akin to a defibrillator being applied one’s heart. He has an ability to take the mundane and turn it into something darkly evocative.
For me, AMFJ’s newest album, Bæn, really encompasses his back catalog well. There are definitely different and new sounds involved, but you get an overall feel for where he’s going and what he’s doing with the tracks. It’s heavy, and the industrial/rock feel reminds me of post 80’s Ministry. One of my favorite tracks is Klasar:
Other tracks such as Eg er Guð, to me, sounds akin to benedictine monks waking up on the wrong side of the wooden floor.
Gigs with AMFJ contain a lot of strobes, with a man front and center usually in a tank top blasting into a mic while twisting and toggling nobs and widgets creating dark loops and echoes. From what I’ve read, sets tend to be intense and just under and hour.
Another great thing about AMFJ, he’s a fair play artist at Gogoyoko. Meaning he’s allowed Gogoyoko to donate 10% or more of his album sales to the 5 charities Gogoyoko supports. So I highly suggest listening and purchasing his stuff from them.
AMFJ will be playing Iceland Airwaves and I highly suggest you check him out. You can find him on Gogoyoko and Facebook, he was kind enough to answer my 4 questions and here are his answers:
1. What is your favorite off-venue Airwaves, or Icelandic joint to jam at? 1. My favorite off venue to play at would be Mjódd. It’s a bus station way up in Breiðholt. I played there last year and it was so refreshing to play for people who would have otherwise never heard of you. Everyday normal commuters on their way home. Bleakly standing around, exhausted after a long week at the grind. Seemingly not caring for the music very much but stayed inside the station anyway, probably because of the storm outside. Then one guy came up to me after the set, said he loved it and bought my cd and gave me beer can from the bag of multible sixpacks he was bringing home to drown his sorrows in. Said he was going to give it a good listen when he’d get home. I’m was very glad to provide the soundtrack for his miserable evening.
2. If you combine all of your favorite colors (for you, add your bandmates if you would), what do you get? I like primary colours. Colours that make other colours, but can also just stand on their own and be them selves. I don’t have any idea how to blend them and I don’t understand how people can come up with weird colour names such as razzmatazz. I think that’s just people desperately trying to make their lives more interesting but are looking in the wrong places. I like red. if I mix other colors into it, it would probably be a different kind of red. But still red.
3. What are 3 of your favorite little known bands of Icelandic origin? Jóhann Eiríksson an electronic musician who’s been around experimenting with noises and field recordings since the late 80’s. He’s behind acts such as Reptilicus and Gjöll and is probably the most underrated artist of our country. I have never met anyone who has such deep understanding of how sound works and what can be done with it.
Norn a black-metal crust band that have been kicking ass lately. They bring a healthy joyful attitude to a genre that isn’t known for having much sense of humor about them selves. They are working on an album these days and Krakkkbot, another great electronic musician you should know about – is dubbing over it some bone crushing noises to crust things up even further.
Logn Young guys who play fast and furious. Extremely refreshing fury in the midst of all the market friendly cuteness that plagues the scene these days.
4. If you could be any creature playing your favorite song, what would the creature be? And what is the song. A Sloth, playing Last Dream of Jesus by Haus Arafna
I’ve never gotten used to the term shoe-gaze pop. As this type of music makes me feel more like watching a kaleidoscope projector on my ceiling nestled in my over-sized beanbag than staring at my shoes. Either way Oyama’s album, “I wanna” makes you just want to kick back and float away while gazing at ceilings, shoes, or just into space. Great beats that keep your attention from straying while vocals float over the top grabbing you and bringing you up there with them. One of my favorite tracks on the album is Sometimes:
A lot of the album reminds me of a very young Spaceman 3/Spiritualized, especially the track Sometimes. Oyama is excellent at producing harmonized vocals that drift over a very spacey set of instruments without sounding too washed out. They have a great way of crossing over and mixing their male and female vocal set to create not so much a duet, but a singular stream of interchangeable notes, most noticed on Wasted (Dinosaur).
Oyama will be at Airwaves again in 2013. I suggest you check them out. To keep up to date with the band, their tumblr is here, their Facebook here, and of course you can find them on Gogoyoko. Júlía and Berger were extremely kind and went to great detail in their answers to my four questions, and here they are:
1. What is your favorite off-venue Airwaves, or Icelandic joint to jam at?
Júlía: Kex hostel and Stúdentakjallarinn fed us good food, plus they are out-of-control trendy places that make anyone who enters (= me) seem hip just by existing within that context (Stúdentakjallarinn has an entire wall of live vegetation).
Bergur: The whole atmosphere surrounding the off-venue program of Iceland Airwaves is fascinating. I love how unformal they all are, really nice plug and play concerts, preferably at venues like Bíó Paradís, Bar 11 or Kex Hostel. Stúdentakjallarinn is also very good, a new venue that actually feeds bands that perform there!
2. If you combine all of your favorite colors what do you get?
Júlía: I keep a running list of all my favorite colors with me (on my phone) at all times. I wish I were making this up. The list goes: eggplant, egg yolk, duck egg, neon green, hunter green, salmon, light pink, lilac, peridot, pale blue, royal blue, navy, mauve, cream, oatmeal, light grey, bright yellow, true red, red orange, burgundy, gold, silver
Bergur: I like most colors that relate to autumn; brown, mustard-brown, moss-green, and then some black and white… They all look good together in layers, but super-mundane if you’d mix them together.
3. What are 3 of your favorite little known bands of Icelandic origin?
Júlía: I’m gonna say The Heavy Experience, Nolo and Samaris. Samaris are pretty well known already but fuck it, I just wanna namedrop all my biggest favesies.
4. If you could be any creature playing your favorite song, what would the creature be? And what is the song?
Júlía: I’m a lemur playing Krawtwerk’s Computer Love Bergur: A Koalabear playing bass on Darondo´s “Didnt I”
I plan on reviewing and aggregating information on all the Icelandic bands that will be playing Airwaves 2013. Just click one of the bands below and you will go to the post. If I have not completed a post on the band, clicking on the link will lead you to their Gogoyoko profile, their webpage, a soundcloud page, or their Facebook page. You can also click here and listen to my playlist, which will have all artists on Gogoyoko.com that are playing the festival. Membership to Gogoyoko is free, and you can stream all the music absolutely free. Also, if you do choose to buy, the artist gets 90% of the sale, that is why I love to use them.
To find an up-to-date list of all the bands playing Airwaves 2013 click here.
Iceland Airwaves has become my favorite music festival. 4 days of music on a small Island straddling two continents. It began in 1999 at an airport hangar, and has now become a web of pubs, concert halls, discotheques and coffee shops sprawled out over the city of Reykjavik. Unlike most festivals, where you have stages competing for sound. Airwaves utilizes multiple venues, granting you the ability to actually see the band you’re listening to in person, not just on a massive screen. During the day you get to see acts play smaller gigs around town in Hostels, coffee bars, bookstores. And last year there was even a small little shack in the town center for a cozy kind of experience. After the festival there are plenty of after parties where bands continue until 6-7 in the morning. It truly is, 4 days of non-stop music.
You can always check the website for more information, and book all-inclusive festival packages here. They also have a playlist on Soundcloud of all the artists, not just the Icelandic ones.
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and here is their Spotify playlist:
Take a coupla shots of Reyka and go here. I’ll see you there, I’ll be the one with the triple vodka tonic listening away.
The lovely German pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk are closing out Airwaves this year. And for you gits that think a band can’t still bring it after 40 some odd years of playing, they just did their entire catalog over 8 days at the Tate Modern to rave reviews. For me, this is a great addition to the Airwaves festival. As always, you can find the entire line-up here. And you can purchase hotel/flight/festival packages here. To learn more about Airwaves you can visit their website. And you can find them on Facebook as well.
It’s really tough to describe a Kraftwerk show, and finding video of it can be difficult as well. So I am going to suggest that you check out the photos on their website, and I’ll leave you with Das Model, because, well… the video always cracks me up.
If you care to, you can always follow my blog, I plan on doing write ups on most, if not all the Icelandic bands that will be attending Airwaves, as well as other Icelandic bands.
Airwaves is looking great, still one of my favorite parties of the year.
As it’s somewhat of a rarity to see Icelanders gracing our Boston stages and bars, I thought I would write a quick review of FM Belfast’s concert at Great Scott last night, Feb 28th 2013. The gig got off to a late start, and as people drifted in YDIMITU began their heavy beats hidden behind two massive strobing LED blocks set to retina destruction level. Next, the ever cheerful keys duo Child Actor took the stage and played to a still increasing dance floor crowd.
With slightly less than 200 people in attendance, FM Belfast came out to stage with full force AND Mexican party favors:
Instantly the floor of adults became partiers and the fun began. Dancing on an amazingly small stage for 5 people, only a foot up above the crowd, Árni, Lóa, and crew had the audience crouching low, jumping high, and bouncing around every which way ‘til Sunday. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen an American adult audience be so alive and it was refreshing.
“Are you ready to jump!?” Shouts Árni just before the instruments kick in and a sound wave of music blasts over a very hyper audience. I’ve seen many shows at Great Scott, but never have I began wondering just how much more the floor could flex before it might give in.
I wish I had a setlist for you, but I didn’t think about writing a review until this morning, so I am unprepared. All the classics were hit as well as a good amount of stuff from the new album. And of course, the band did underwear, and lost their pants in the process. There was blending of songs, and improvised extensions to allow the audience to dance even longer. The only song not played I would have liked to have heard was Tropical.
But it truly was a fantastic show, made slightly cooler by the smaller, very excited crowd. You can check out my blog post on FM Belfast, which includes links to stream their albums as well as links to all their pages here. And you can catch FM Belfast live at the Studio at Webster Hall on March 3rd.
Well folks, the second batch O’bands has been announced for Iceland Airwaves 2013. Múm (pronounced Moom) will be there, as well as Sin Fang, pronounced Sinn Faiinnnng, Bloodgroup (pronounced giddy) and Metz (pronounced with a silent Q). To see the line-up so far click here.
And, if you’re in the Boston area, remember that FM Belfast is playing at Great Scott tomorrow, Feb 28th, at Great Scott in Allston. It’s $12 or so, and well worth it.
Well they’ve done it, they’ve begun to announce the bands for 2013 Iceland Airwaves. You can see them here. And, I have created a playlist which contains a few tracks from all of the bands that are currently in Gogoyko here.
I don’t think I’ll be carting the Wookiee suit up to Iceland this year, but, fates willing, I’ll be there yet again, listening to music and drinking my vodka.
Ragnaar's Icelandic Music Blog 