Reykjavík Grapevine - 17.10.2008, Side 10

Untitled-7 10/16/08 10:22:44 AM
I show up at Iðnó and everyone’s sitting quietly on
the f loor gazing into a parade of textures glitching
on a screen: feathers, bubbles, old rope. Yroyoto
is a visual artist: he dances around the laptop as
though performing a rain dance while the loops
go around and around. It’s like climbing endless
f lights of stairs, but nice if you like that kind of
thing. Ben Frost sets the precedent for the rest
of the evening, filling the stage with people and
instruments, both analog and electronic: there’s
a trombone, a few guitarists, several PowerBooks,
and some of the most beautiful little fairy-like girls
you’ll ever see, all crouching and poised, nursing
a tender breathing melody into a whole science of
suspension and release. Video artist transforma
gives us a cloudy white sky for the cloudy white
noise. These are instruments played with the
lightest hand and the darkest intent. It turns out
that the beautiful girls are the quartet Amiina, ap-
pearing today with electro-experimentalist kippi
kaninus. They are extraordinary: deceptively
sweet and quiet, yet they generate a percussive
tidal wave of sound. It’s a sensual, organic proc-
ess, but it builds into a violent fever: have you ever
seen a beautiful girl in advanced pregnancy play
the accordion, wide legged, eyes closed in musical
ecstasy? No? Well, shit: you should’ve been there.
Time for something completely different: the “Ap-
palachian folk singer from Brooklyn” Sam Ami-
don takes the stage. His songs are traditional in
theme and structure, full of space and silence to let
the majesty of lyric and voice to shine through, but
since neither one is majestic it ends up sounding
a bit like Sting: hollow and interminable. Not even
the arrival of more beautiful girls on violin, accor-
dion and bassoon can lift the tedium until Amidon
busts out a smile – his first – and does the buzzard
dance: he’s a better avant-gardist than troubadour,
echoed when Nico Muhly is announced as absent
and he’s required to step up to the mic again. The
trombonist sings, too: he’s a wonderful tenor who
does falsetto, occasionally Gregorian, jazz meets
baroque. Muhly himself grins from the screen of a
laptop while his music soars through space. It’s a
great big joyful jam, part-improvised, part-scored.
Local hero Valgeir Sigurðsson takes the jam into
choral exuberance, with the whole crew clapping
and singing: and finally – after playing everyone
else’s music all night – sample-wizard Final Fan-
tasy is alone in the spotlight. It’s the undisputed
highlight. He epitomises everything that is brave
and wonderful about the new contemporary. He
employs the new technologies, but never fetishizes
them; he hacks protocols and status quos, but al-
ways with respect. He sings, he performs, he lets
the violin’s own voice speak its name and his, for
the good of all of us; over and over, a looped, infi-
nite, triumphant yes. Jesse Darling
Iðnó
FRi
DAY
Leó