Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.10.2009, Síða 26

Friday 25.09.09
Cultura
Friday 25.09.09
Grand Rokk
matching nautical outfits but all their songs sounded the
same and it all got very dull very fast. Even the crowd seemed
eager to get the Danes off the stage halfway into the set,
coincidentally around the time either Bode or Brixen shouted
“thank you Greenland!” Sorry buddy, wrong colony.
Maybe gauging the temperature of the crowd or maybe
just smart, Berndsen set up his stage quickly and playfully
left the eager crowd chanting his name while he sauntered
over to the bar for a pre-gig bevy, kissing some adoring fans
along the way. With the runaway popularity of his Supertime
video, everybody in Batterí turned to their neighbour and
whispered “oh my god, it’s Berndsen!” as he passed by in
the pink and yellow jacket and headband from his Lover
in the Dark video. Once behind the mic Berndsen’s set left
something to be desired. Perhaps it was nerves or perhaps
it was that he was bouncing around too much, causing his
voice to sound choppy, but something was off about the
performance. The electronic instrumentals of The Young Boys
were jumpy and fun and kept the Berndsen fanatics busting
their moves, but the night was losing momentum fast until he
closed his set with Supertime.
Berndsen is so goddamn adorable that I forgive him for the
lags in his stage time. Once the masses get a better taste of
what he’s all about—other than Supertime—this boy is going
places. - Catharine Fulton
What do you get when you put together an amateur, a
shitload of ladadada-lyrics and a terrible singer? I’ll tell you
what you get: a rather shitty evening.
It’s Melodica Acoustic Festival night, and four acoustic
acts are to take the carpet covered stage in the dark
basement of Kaffi Kúltúra. A handful of people have turned up
and it is quite apparent that the audience mainly consists of
friends of the performers. This could have been one of those
cosy, intimate concerts. It was not.
Myrra Rós is first up. The performance is basically the
same slow depressing type of song over and over again. She
does a lot of talking to her friends in the audience, as well
as some mid-song giggling. This night, this venue, Myrra
Rós just isn’t very convincing as a musician. Everything is
very amateur-like, and there is no presence what so ever.
Myrra Rós can at least sing, but her voice is not particularly
memorable.
Suddenly, while people are running up and down the stairs
for beer, a loud noise flows from the speakers. It is the next
act, Sebastian Storgaard, singing. His mediocre voice starts
pounding these terrible lyrics into my head via the way too
loud mic and I just begin to wonder if this dude shouldn’t find
another hobby. One not involving music. There is an overload
of ladadada-ing, then someone in the audience tips Sebastian
on tuning his guitar, I’ve had too much.
I am only going to mention briefly what happens next,
because my mother once told me that if you don’t have
anything nice to say, you shouldn’t say anything. Tryggvi
Gunnarsson takes the stage. The whole experience is just
kind of embarrassing.
The evening’s long-awaited highpoint comes as the
presenter announces that the last act is a no-show. I let out a
silent sight of relief and thank my stars. - Louise Petersson
My ears still ringing after the Eistnaflug concert the night
before, I was happy to enter Grand Rokk again for some good
and heavy music. Grand Rokk is an ideal venue for tonight.
It’s dark and gloomy, but it has an eerily soothing atmosphere.
Just like the previous night the place was packed, and
Plastic Gods got a warm welcome from an expectant crowd.
Defining their music is hard. There was definitely a lot of
heavy, smoky and delicious sludge. Yet, there is also great
intensity and aggression. PG are definitely one of Iceland’s
most exciting acts nowadays.
While I was still reeling from the psychedelic aftermath of
Plastic Gods, Logn hit the stage. The little metalheads in front
of me began their head-banging, so Logn were probably
doing something right.
For some reason, they failed to impress. Yes, it was very
fast, and the guitars had apparently been tuned beforehand
by the Dark Lord’s own roadie, but therein lies the problem. I
may sound like an old fart here, but I couldn´t hear any riffs or
power chords. It was just noise. Mainstream noise. The good
thing is that these young guys were really hammering their
guitars with full force. They may turn into something really
nasty one day, I hope.
Next on stage was Myra whose members have been
active in the metal/punk/hardcore scene for a long time.
Again, it is difficult to define their music but the word that
comes to mind is heavy. Myra are heavy as shit, and I could
feel my lower jaw begin to protrude while my mouth made
unintelligible growling noises. That’s metal-fever, right there.
The bass and drums got an evil groove going on, while the
guitars smear total lunacy on top. The singer’s voice isn’t so
powerful, but he makes up for that with wild stage antics
and his howling sent shivers down my spine. Myra have been
absent from the scene for a while, but I sincerely hope they
will stay for now, because they are simply awesome.
It is always difficult to take to stage while the audience is
still screaming for the last band, but Muck showed no sign of
retreating. Muck have some pretty powerful things up their
sleeve. I was especially impressed with the guitar players. The
music is some kind of post hardcore. Fast, with cool and slow
intervals. I got pretty annoyed with the singer through the set.
He sang in exactly the same pitch the whole time, and it was
always this tiresome hardcore screaming. Trying a different
Réttir Music Reviews
Since playing the Iceland Airwaves fes-
tival in 2005, Joseph Mount and his
outfit Metronomy has gone from being
a solo project to a full-blown electro-pop
band. Since the release of their album
Nights Out last fall, the group has built
up a steady blog buzz and toured all
over the UK and North America, wear-
ing out dancing shoes wherever they’ve
gone. They now have the honour of be-
ing the only non-Faroese, non-Bedroom
Community affiliated international act
to play Airwaves for a second time. I re-
cently spoke to Mr. Mount about where
the band is at right now.
It was a long break between your first
and second albums. Will we have to wait
another three years before you drop a
new album or do you have plans to hit
the studio again soon?
Sadly, it is seen as a long break, but in
actual fact it felt like a very short time. In
the three years we were trying to get out
of a record deal and touring pretty hard.
Fact is the next record will take much
less than three years to make. The last
one only really took about nine months.
What is your song writing process?
Where do you do your best composing?
The process is very confused, but it is ef-
ficient. I compose best in a dark room
after a few drinks...or an argument.
How do you know you’ve made a
song you are happy with? What’s the
feeling you get?
It takes a long time. You need to like it
yourself, first of all. Then you need to
feel like it was worthwhile by others en-
joying it also. As a rule of thumb, I do
not release music that I do not like.
You guys remixed U2’s City of Blind-
ing Lights, but it wasn’t allowed to be re-
leased. What’s up with that?
That was a marketing decision I
think. Fuck knows why they didn’t like
it. They had a chance to back a young as-
piring artist, but decided against it. It’s
not unusual.
Your music videos are pretty clever.
How much hand do you have in those?
Do you owe it to the directors you’ve
worked with?
It is a bit of both. In most cases I have
come up with the ideas and given them
to a director. Luckily we work with good
video makers who understand our hu-
mour. They then take the idea and run
with it. It’d good to let someone else have
fun.
You have been touring fairly exten-
sively since the release of Nights Out.
How do you avoid hitting the wall of ex-
haustion?
Well, the new line up has postponed
exhaustion to some extent. It’s very ex-
citing and new for us all. Otherwise, we
don’t. We get ill on the road and do our
best to keep up. Of course we have the
best job in the whole universe, but it is
not without its minor problems.
Are you looking forward to playing
at Airwaves for the second time? What
makes you excited?
The first time I played at Airwaves was
the first time I ever played abroad. I re-
member being so afraid and excited, it
was a massive thing for me to do. No one
else in the band has ever travelled to Ice-
land, and I keep telling them how beau-
tiful the air is. The first time I played
there had a huge impact on me.
And do you realise you are pretty
much the only international act that
has been invited to play Airwaves twice?
How does that make you feel?
It is an honour. It’s maybe a mistake that
I am able to come back, but of all the
people in the world that could be invited
I am probably the most grateful.
Any particular remembrances from
your last Airwaves stint? What stuck
out if anything? Also, a lot of first time
Airwavesgoers will be reading this, so
in that spirit: Do you have any advice for
them? What not to miss, and what to dis?
I remember three things...
1. Being very nervous
2. How incredible the air was
3. How very English the people are
Beyond that, I would say that Iceland is
a very unique place. I can’t dis anything.
Really, nothing bad happened to me
there last time.
What can the Airwaves audience ex-
pect from your live show?
A very excited bunch of English people
who want nothing more than to put on
a good show. I really can’t stress how ex-
cited we are, you probably get this a lot,
but this is the highlight of our year.
Interview | By Rebecca Louder
Got A Thing For Them
Metronomy enthuse about
their upcoming Airwaves gig
08
Friday 23:50
Reykjavík Art Museum
Iceland Airwaves 2009 CD Review
Inventive to the point of annoyance
Who’d have thought that being in debt
would make you famous these days?
For the sake of five grand owed to
a car scrappers’ yard, Pip has been
forever immortalised in bleeps, beeps,
turning-trick melodies, Aphex Twin
scary skewiff twisted-face sound
manipulation and electro-bounciness.
Random, somewhat rusty, but classy.
Seems the debut album has taken its
spirit from that cheeky fucker, and in
the case of something like Bearcan
it actually sounds like Metronomy
mainman Joseph Mount has sneaked
into the same car yard to record the
percussion on discarded Ladas. Fiddle
around under the bonnet enough and
you’ll find the pop sump full of… ok
enough with the cars.
Nights Out, last year’s follow-up
offering, is slightly more user-
friendly, and nearly a concept album
in Metronomy’s own hall of mirrors
manner, right from the moment the
Chinese traditional sounds of the
intro-title track bank round a sky
of manipulated mariachi horns and
military drums. The remarkable thing
about this second album is that it does,
at times, sound exactly like a night out
running through bars, or at least the
fractured following-morning memories.
The End Of You Too lurches between
indie discos playing Take Me Out by
Franz Ferdinand, reggae cafes and 80s
discos before finally leaving its mark
with a half-heard bassline as if through
the walls of a club. Throughout there
are nods to Devo, Talking Heads, rave
culture, kiddy toys and anyone whose
hearts are blessed and bloody with
the frolics and frustrations of trying
to break out of a small town—or, more
accurately, getting out of their own
strange, poppy, amazing, annoyingly
talented heads. Pip would understand.
- Joe Shooman
Metronomy
Pip Payne (Pay The £5000 You
Owe) & Nights Out
If you’re a serious musicologist you’ll know that vinyl is the ultimate form for experi-
encing music. And if you don’t mind lugging some weight back home, then there are
a few places in Reykjavík where you can find some quality vinyl.
The Kolaportið flea market (open Saturdays and Sundays) is the host to a few regu-
lar vinyl booths. Usually there is quite a big selection, and although it’s heavy on old
Eagles and Rush albums, you can find some gems there if you rummage around. The
biggest booth there is run by a Mr. Lucky, who just happened to open a specialty shop
at Hverfisgata 82, with over 20.000 vinyl LPs on offer, as well as CDs and DVDs.
At Vitastígur, a friendly fellow named Valdi runs a small shop with a good se-
lection, especially in the metal genre. There you can also find a sizeable used CD
selection. If you want brand new plastic, then the shops at Skífan and 12 Tónar on
Laugavegur have new releases, and the few Icelandic albums that are available on
vinyl. - Páll Hilmarsson
High Fidelity Scorin’ some vinyl in RVK
Grapevine Airwaves Mini 2009 Go to www.grapevine.is/airwaves for extensive + up to date festival coverage