Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.04.2007, Side 19

0_REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 04_007_REVIEWS/MUSIC/LIVE
There was a fair amount of anticipation on
my behalf before Ólöf Arnald’s debut release
concert. Ólöf has gotten great reviews for
her new album and I had previously seen her
warm up for Amiina in concert but this was
Ólöf’s night.
From the first tone ringing in my ears I
knew this was gonna be a feel-good concert.
The band, consisting of many of Iceland’s best
musicians, was more than formidable play-
ing all kinds of instruments I won’t bother
to name. Ólöf began singing in Icelandic in a
raw, folksy Joan Baez style and the Icelandic
language has never sounded so good. Few
would describe Ólöf as singing like an angel,
but if I had an angel in a cage I’d want him
to sound just like her. Beauty is not in perfec-
tion but in an exceptional anomaly. Ölöf also
proved quite humorous on stage. She kept
forgetting to introduce Arnljótur Sigurðsson,
a competent young bass player who filled in
for the ex-Blonde Red Head (now bald) Skúli
Sverrisson.
Ólöf played beautiful heart-warming
songs, such as the lullaby Go to Sleep, and
while my body felt sleepy my soul felt uplifted.
Ólöf has a unique voice that is always on the
verge of breaking, which, for those who don’t
follow music, is a good thing. Ólöf’s greatest
strength is the combination of Icelandic folk
music and traditional oriental music. Playing
the Koto harp she taps into something foreign
that is nevertheless so close to us.
The low point of the concert was a Me-
gas cover, which, besides being a cliché and
an easy and tasteless way out, it was so slow
and pretentious that even a few members of
Múm thought it was pretentious. Actually,
that’s a lie, but that would be funny. The
high point of the night was when Ólöf gave
her guitar player a guitar tuning lesson on
stage proving she’s a real person and a damn
good guitar player as well. The brass and
sting sections accompanying Ólöf sounded
really good. Ólöf sang about peace in one of
her lyrics, which coincidently was the feeling
lingering inside me for most of the show.
I really liked all the songs apart from the
Megas cover and when she started singing
Lalalalala, I knew she was a real artist singing
from her soul and not her mind. I don’t trust
artists who never sing lalalala because hu-
man emotion is often too magnificent to be
reduced to manmade concepts. Everybody
gets the lalalala feeling now and again; and
those who don’t have never fully lived.
The last song of the night was a cover
of Johnny Cash’s That Lucky Old Sun. Some
people might have found the context weird
when Ólöf was singing the words of a de-
pressed cowboy but I felt it was a post-
modern masterpiece. It was strange, it was
exciting, it was something special adding to
Iceland’s musical history. Ólöf got a stand-
ing ovation and deserved it. Her voice and
Koto harp may well touch people’s hearts for
a long time.
An Exceptional Anomaly
Text by Helgi Valur Photo by Skari
Who: Ólöf Arnalds
Where: NASA
When: March 21, 2007
When The Sugarcubes first embarked on
their musical voyage under the slogan
‘World Domination or Death,’ few people
expected them (or more accurately, one of
them, although many of the ‘Cubes still work
closely with Björk) to live up to the hype. Now
the world at large is more familiar with Björk
than with Iceland, and in the process, she
has become a symbol for the Icelandic plan
for world domination (Operation Ice Storm).
As much as we would all like to pretend that
a Björk concert is solely about the music, it
is anything but. A large part of the audience
was there simply to witness the event, rather
than to listen to the concert.
Björk stepped on stage wearing a gold
puffed-out dress that actually made her
resemble a character from Giles Reed’s The
Munch Bunch, although that may have no
relevance here at all. A small army of stage
performers, including a ten-strong female
horn section, dressed in the most colorful
collection of dresses, accompanied her.
Björk has stated that the songs on Volta
were written with the purpose of being
delivered live. Having had the pleasure of
listening to Volta in its entirety a few days
earlier, I noticed that many of the song
arrangements hade been changed from the
album version to accommodate the newly
added horn section. For most parts, the
changes were positive, and gave a more
vibrant feel to the delivery.
Much like when I first listened to the
album, I felt there are two songs that
absolutely stand apart from this CD. The
first one was her fifth song on the night, a
heartwarming duo with Anthony Hegarty
(Anthony and the Johnsons), Dull Flame of
Desire, that will surely be the radio hit of the
album. Anthony was obviously feeling a bit
awkward on stage, a full foot taller and far
from being dexterous enough to keep up
with Björk. It was still an early highlight of the
show, despite their lack of cohesion, probably
resulting from Anthony’s lack of rehearsing
time (he badly miscued at least twice). Sadly,
he is not likely to be a permanent member of
the entourage.
The second one was her encore, a song
she dedicated to Greenland and the Faeroe
Islands called Declare Independence (don’t
let them do that to you). It is a frantic
screamo-electronica with a lot of fire. It will
be interesting to see how that goes down at
Roskilde, as Denmark is the ruling nation in
both Greenland and the Faeroe Islands.
In other news, it became a show to
witness towards the end when Björk
performed some of her earlier hits, including
Army of Me, Bachelorette (with a nice polka
section), and a thundering version of Hyper-
ballad, duly assisted by Mark Bell from LFO
who has been a permanent fixture in Björk’s
camp.
www.myspace.com/bjork
Can I Get a Witness?
Text by Sveinn Birkir Björnsson Photo by Skari
Who: Björk
Where: Laugardalshöll
When: April 9, 2007
Energy for life through forces of nature
www.bluelagoon.com