Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.04.2010, Síða 30

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Music | Live Review
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 04 — 2010 did you KnoW? That "a. rawlings" is actually just a clever pseudonym of everyone's favou-
rite Canadian experimental poet - slash - Icelandophile, Angela Rawlings.
More on her at www.commutiny.wordpress.com
Hours after a volcanic fissure rup-
tured in Fimmvörðuháls on the ver-
nal equinox, Canadian electro-glam
star Peaches erupted onto NASA’s
stage in a fury of beats, costumes,
hair, and attitude—a suitable finale
for the inaugural Reykjavík Fashion
Festival.
Peaches’ musical persona is ob-
sessed with hair and costume; she
has worn beards for media appear-
ances, displayed her own private
curly fringe for CD covers and online
interviews, and—well—her fourth
album title speaks for itself: Impeach
My Bush. In videos such as Serpen-
tine and Talk to Me, hair adorns cos-
tumes as fringe, while in Tombstone
Baby two women toy with sexual f lir-
tation and frustration through acts of
hair stroking and pulling.
With Peaches’ attempts to un-
tangle conventional attitudes to hair,
it was appropriate that she took the
NASA stage dressed in boxing shoes
and a black-hair body suit with tower-
ing head dress. Her second song, the
aforementioned Talk to Me, demand-
ed responses from two blonde go-go
dancers who joined Peaches onstage,
both silent dancers in black under-
wear and oversized matted wigs that
obscured their faces.
Peaches oscillated between en-
ticement and violence as she inter-
acted with the audience. With swift
kicks, she swiped empty bottles off
the stage in a spray of broken glass.
Her performance pushed through
choreography and costume changes
(from towels to pussy lights, glam-
rock necklaces to prosthetic breasts),
props and prat falls—dangerous
enough with a drunken, infatuated
mass surging towards the stage, ea-
ger to paw Peaches.
Playing into this visceral audience
desire and her own ideology, Peaches
delivered a series of interactive antics
(spray-spitting fake blood, pulling
pretty girls onstage to dance, allow-
ing hungry hands to molest her gui-
tar) that amped up the crowd’s party
drive.
Peaches even crowd-surfed and
walked all over the audience. To
prep the howling mass for this latter
stunt, she shouted, “Are you ready
for something special, Reykjavík?
… Jesus walked on water; Peaches
walks on you.” She chased this with
stripped-down beats and laissez-faire
lyrics in Serpentine, a song from her
newest album I Feel Cream, with a
chorus that proved the motto of the
night: “I don’t give a fuck if you maul
me.”
I stood and watched the grotes-
query of the evening. A hard-working
(and arguably exhausted) performer
executed choreographed moments
and pushed or kicked any object or
person out of her way while booze-
soaked beauties, bedecked in fine
suits and frocks, pulsed their young
bodies and yelled infatuation unin-
telligently. My mind wandered to a
YouTube fan video for Peaches’ an-
themic Fuck the Pain Away paired
with Miss Piggy clips. Excess. Des-
peration. Greed. Shock art of swine
in pearls. Puppet perversion, jerks
and gyrations, mouth full of sexually
explicit expletives.
Whether drunk, bitter, sleepy,
euphoric, or volcanic, by the end of
Peaches’ performance, we all found
our release.
Fashion, Eruption, Aggression,
And A Whole Lotta Fuzz
Peaches storms NASA at the RFF
a. RaWlinGS
JÓi KJaRTanS
Music | CD Reviews
Úlpa have been lingering at the
periphery of the Icelandic music scene
for long enough to make something
of a name for themselves, but I can’t
remember ever meeting anyone who
really likes them or has even listened
to them, except for this one guy...
although I am a bit of a shut-in.

All that said, Úlpa’s latest effort is
as darkly satisfying as all their work,
with a heavy Arabic twist to their
guitar work and songwriting. This
does unfortunately make them sound
a bit too proggy for my taste, but
Úlpa’s laid-back professionalism and
their richly textured soundscape, one
glimpsed through a hazy murk of
flange, delay, reverbs and overdubs,
always make for an intriguing listen.
- SindRi Eldon
Found Songs is a project Ólafur
Arnalds undertook last year. It involved
writing, recording and mixing a track
every day for a week, then giving
them away for free via his Twitter
account. The result is a twenty minute
mini album containing tracks that are
sparse and minimal, switching away
from electronic percussion and with
the piano and violin forming the central
soundscape.
And such are the feelings of loss,
pain and melancholy that pervade
through the album’s minor keys, what
Arnalds seems to have done is make
a soundtrack for possibly the world’s
saddest film, if that existed—a film that
would probably contain death, cancer,
incest, addiction and a bag of kittens
being tossed into a river in the first
ten minutes. Admittedly, some people
may find the album a little cold and
lacking in depth due to the shortness
of the tracks. But given some time and
the right setting, its soft tones have a
notable calming effect.
- BoB ClunESS
Úlpa Ólafur arnalds
Jahilíya (2009) Found Songs (2009)
ulpa
Self-indulgent and clichéd, but in a
good, wholesome way.
olafurarnalds
Sad sounds and melancholy to
soothe the savage beast.
hudson Wayne
How Quick Is Your Fish?
Seven tracks of laconic resignation
form Hudson Wayne’s third “full-
length” and it stands firmly as the
band’s most relaxed and confident
offering yet, which is not to say it goes
anywhere special or interesting. It
relies more on its mood and energy
to create atmosphere than any kind
of effect or production gimmicks,
meaning that, for better or for worse,
it’s true nature is obvious: a simple
little bit of morose guitar drudgery, not
blessed with any highs or lows, just
cruising through foggy skies with no
particular destination in mind.
- SindRi Eldon sykurtheband
Music to come home drunk to
peaches
ladytron dJ's
Bloodgroup
Sykur
NASA, March 20th 2010