Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.08.2007, Side 22

RVK_GV_1_007_REV/CDS_76_REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 1_007_REVIEWS/MUSIC/LIVE
The Culture House - Þjóðmenningarhúsið
Hverfisgata 15, 101 Reykjavik
Tel.: +354 545 1400, www.thjodmenning.is
MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS – EDDAS AND SAGAS. EXHIBITION AT THE CULTURE HOUSE.
Open daily between 11am and 5pm
Eddas and Sagas
Iceland’s national treasures
The admission fee grants entry to all exhibitions at the Culture House. Adults ISK 300. Senior citizens ISK 200. Students ISK 200.
Free entry for children 16 years of age or younger. Admission is free on Wednesdays. An open guided tour of the Manuscripts
exhibition is offered every weekday except Wednesdays at 3:30 pm.
The lack of a central power structure, primary
record label, promotion guru, etc, has been
both a curse and a godsend for Reykjavík’s
music scene. One the one hand, you’ve got
what a friend of mine calls “minor music
kings,” self-proclaimed hotshots working
at every level of the music business denying
or accepting bands entirely at whim or the
advertiser’s check. On the other hand – and
this being the case with the men-against
rape organization NEI! and their latest show
at Grand Rokk – you end with a genuinely
DIY scene, bands playing because they can
and want to, even if those radio DJs and club
promoters don’t want them on the bill for a
major event.
Take Byssupiss for example, a duo of high
school girls who, even though they probably
picked up their instruments last Christmas,
still manage to confidently yelp like little Ice-
landic Kimya Dawsons (one song was about
Hjaltalín’s coke use, and for another, they
invited a friend on stage to rap awkwardly:
“you think that you’re going to heaven/ you
won’t ‘cause I’ll be guarding the gates…you
want to blow up my face?”). Or one of the
last acts of the night, Wulfgang, an indie-rock
band with serious energy and numerous rock-
outs. These are not flashy acts, but you start
to understand the eclecticism of the Reykjavík
scene and the haziness of a holistic “Reykjavík
Sound” when you see supporters of all kinds
of acts, big acts like Sprengjuhöllin and Lay
Low, coming out and giving a damn about
these awkward underdog musicians.
The cramped audience of assorted age
hushed en masse for the heavenly Ólöf Ar-
nalds. I have been listening to Við og Við a
good deal for the past few months, and I have
to say that I fell in love with Ólöf in person. I
had to exam the level of tact involved if I had
yelled out “Ólöf Arnalds, have my fucking
babies!” at a show sponsored by an organiza-
tion for men against rape. More like: “Ólöf
Arnalds, if I were the last man on earth, and
you the last woman, then would you please
consensually have my fucking babies?”
Where the eclecticism of the current Reyk-
javík “sound” fails itself is at the presence
of B. Sig, a group of thirty-somethings who
aspire to be WAR. If you don’t know who
WAR is, they did “Low Rider.” Yeah. They
are loud and cheesy and loud. And cheesy.
Though their set is tight, their music is the
kind of stuff you should expect at a garage
sale or a 4th of July celebration. Not a musical
showcase like this one.
The beautiful Lay Low and boring Dik-
ta played only a few songs. The indie-folk
Sprengjuhöllin closed the night off with a
lukewarm set after the guys from NEI! did a
semi-comedic routine about the shit they took
for starting the organization. Even if they
did come off somewhat as self-aggrandizing,
self-pitying martyrs (“Woe is me, for I rape
not!”), I still bought a tee to support their
moral cause.
NEI! I Rape Not!
Text by Chandler Fredrick Photo by Gulli
Who: Various
Where: Grand Rokk
When: August 1, 2007
Nico Muhly moves like his music. I mean
this completely seriously. When he talks, his
expressions follow his hands like foreshadow,
embellishing his fast words and the sharp
inflection of his voice. Curiously enough,
when he plays, he has none of that. Com-
pletely still behind his piano, he watches his
co-players sway to his notes. Yet you know
Nico is moving. You can see it in his eyes
when he plays. His mind is running alongside
the music, flittering about the staffs, getting
there before the notes do.
Returning to Iceland to record his second
album with producer Valgeir Sigurðson, the
twenty-six-year-old New York based composer
took a Friday afternoon to perform at the most
all-around-lovely concert I’ve ever attended.
In the 12 Tónar garden, the pleasantness
truly abounded with rose wine and sunshine
when more than fifty people squeezed in the
garden to watch Nico share his musings on
life, music, and his upcoming album.
“When you’re a composer you’re kind
of just like a brain in a jar,” Muhly said, in-
troducing his violinist Una Sveinbjarnadóttir.
“You kind of just make this stuff and then
send it off for some other people to deal
with.” In this case, Una, who launched into
Honest Music, a song off of Muhly’s debut
album Speaks Volumes, which was released
earlier this year. The wind blew and three men,
Valgeir and Ben Frost among them, jumped
from the audience towards the pages on the
music stand. The song went on, Nico pushed
keys on the piano. Sitting in the grass a few
members of the audience contently closed
their eyes.
Each song came with a short introduction,
a context into which Muhly was enthusiastic
to draw the audience. He introduced one
song with the anecdote that his first job was
as a church organist; another song was from
a genre of music he called “hippie drone,”
which he explained was inspired by being
raised by hippies. “A couple of years back I
wrote some music just to completely get it
out of my system,” he said.
Nico’s recording process is such that the
live versions of his songs sound quite differ-
ent from their recorded adaptations. On his
latest album the instruments are recorded
individually, with the microphone intimately
close, then mixed together to create an or-
chestral sound. Live, the philosophy is quite
different. Much of the rich, indulgent detail
of sound from the recordings is lost traveling
across the windy afternoon air. But the music
stood up for itself. Taking on a slightly less
personal but nonetheless absorbing sound.
The concert was over within twenty min-
utes. There was more rose wine to go around,
and people stayed in the grass. Everyone
was smiling and looking at Muhly as though
they wanted to hug him. He started excitedly
towards the standing crowd, moving, like an
echo, with a genuinely fascinating softness.
Musings in the Garden
Text by Valgerður Þóroddsdóttir Photo by Gulli
Who: Nico Muhly
Where: 12 tónar
When: July 27, 2007
Step into
the Viking Age
Experience Viking-Age Reykja­vík a­t the
new Settlement Exhibition. The focus of the
exhibition is a­n exca­va­ted longhouse site which
da­tes from the 10th century ad. It includes
relics of huma­n ha­bita­tion from a­bout 871, the
oldest such site found in Icela­nd.
Multimedia­ techniques bring Reykja­vík’s
pa­st to life, providing visitors with insights
into how people lived in the Viking Age, a­nd
wha­t the Reykja­vík environment looked like
to the first settlers.
The exhibition a­nd
museum shop a­re open
da­ily 10–17
Aða­lstræti 16
101 Reykja­vík / Icela­nd
Phone +(354) 411 6370
www.reykja­vikmuseum.is
On his twentieth studio album, Megas brings to the game a band that
suits him so precisely, close to perfect. The band, Senuþjófarnir, like Ný
Dönsk in the nineties, consists of gifted musicians who have a high re-
gard for the master’s work (Megas is quite regularly called “the master”).
These bands have displayed their admiration of his seventies releases and
a band called Spilverk Þjóðanna that backed him up on his most highly re-
garded album, Á bleikum náttkjólum (e. On Pink Nightgowns). One could
say at some points the master and his new band are recalling his work
he did with S.Þ. on the abovementioned masterpiece. Frágangur displays
the master at his sharpest since 1992’s “Þrír blóðdropar” or maybe even
1988’s Höfuðlausnir. Vocally, he’s maybe not at his finest but the song
writing and the lyrics are his wittiest in years.
Megas & Senuþjófarnir
Frágangur
Jan Mayen came out in late 2003 with an outright buoyant and breakable,
yet catchy and melodic, self-titled EP. 2004 brought to light their debut
LP, an album that shook many trees and even caught the attention of city
counsellor Gísli Marteinn Baldursson. “So Much Better than Your Nor-
mal Life” displays the quartet’s development gracefully from being a glee-
ful tour de force to a grown up entity that contains its youth elegantly, not
only as a band but as individuals. Their biggest growth might be the voice
of singer Valgeir Gestsson. The guitar work brings to mind the duelling
chemistry of Sister-era Sonic Youth and even Thin Lizzy’s Gorham and
Robertson with a murky twist and held together by a greatly advanced
rhythm session. The album is also neatly crafted and includes some out of
the ordinary, but welcome, synthesized sweetness. This album is so much
better than a normal rock album.
Jan Mayen
So Much Better Than Your Normal Life
Reviewed by Benedikt Reynisson
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