Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.03.2011, Blaðsíða 25

24
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 3 — 2011
Music | CD Reviews
BlazRoca's 21-track return to the
Icelandic hip-hop scene is about as
chaotic as you’d expect. It has about 15
tracks of booze-fuelled party anthems
(there’s a few vaguely political ram-
blings in there as well) dedicated to
Kópavogur, Iceland’s own white-trash,
suburban, dystopian nightmare. Truth
be told, there simply isn’t a dull mo-
ment to be found. This album is an out-
of-control road trip through one man’s
psychotropically destroyed cerebral
cortex; it’s Alice In Wonderland with
rum, bouncers, horny 16-year-olds and
autotune. Every single negative aspect
of consciousness-altering activities in
Iceland is summed up, hammed up and
celebrated here, and you’d be a fool
not to join in.
- SindRi Eldon
BlazRoca
KópaCabana
blaz.roca
Music to make you wish you were
getting drunk tonight. Or sooner. In
fact, I’m drunk right now.
Hot tip for you Icelandic bands with
English lyrics: spell-check your
motherfucking CD booklet… and learn
English… and maybe get someone else
to do your artwork… or, in fact, if your
band is Ferlegheit, you should probably
just get a new band. This horrifyingly
anachronistic genre exercise is about
as cheap and pointless as they come,
with lousy, derivative blues riffs turning
no musical corners at all. The produc-
tion is, however superb, but even this
turns out to be unfortunate; it makes
every hackneyed guitar hook and
organ chortle resonate with crystal
clarity on your speakers, and you can
practically hear the cheap poses and
scribbling of heartless mathematical
equations used to write music like this.
- SindRi Eldon
Ferlegheit
You Can Be As Bad As You
Can Be Good
Ferlegheit
Very bad indeed
When it doesn’t get too stupid and
sappy (like one of those unbearable
French films with a season, colour or
a place in France in the title), this is
actually a nice little piece of string-
laden ambience that drifts along quite
innocently. It won’t change your life,
but it won’t ruin it, either.
- SindRi Eldon
Skúli Sverrisson
Sería II
sklisverrisson
Lovely
A laid-back collection of organ-driven
pop, this album doesn’t do much of
anything too interesting or remarkable,
just kind of chilling in its own little
universe of indolence. None of this
would be that special if it weren’t for
the somewhat surprising fact that this
album is actually pretty damn good.
Not great, but, you know, pretty good.
Check out ‘Áfram’, ‘Yfirgefinn’ and the
title track for some cool shit going on,
as well as track two, whose name is
too long for this review.
- SindRi Eldon
Valdimar
Undraland
valdimarband
Like slipping into a vat of warm
butter.

There’s no option
but to bend over
and take what’s on
offer from our
digital overlords.
Offerings such as
‘Skywatchers’ from
Yoda Remote, a rabid chipmunk duo
who spent their school years making
crazy 8-bit electronic tunes instead of
learning algebra, or sniffing glue. Its
hyperactive madness feels like having
a couple of sped up Gameboys glued
to your ears, while mainlining
meth-laced Haribo sweets. I’m glad
they didn’t put a fucking donk on it
though (+/-).

I need to relax and
so I take in some
soothing folktronica
from norsu and his
debut EP ‘Ammas
Mountain’. I know
nothing about this
guy, but the lo-fi beats over soft chewy
synths, folksy guitar and rising strings
kind of makes me want to make a
paper mache womb, fill it with jam and
stay in there until the summertime
(+/-).

Or I could dance to
‘Heat Of The Nite’
by Simian Mobile
Justice. Oops, I
mean Jungle
Fiction. They have
that filter house
sound right down to the jello bass,
smooth arpeggiator melodies, and a
crazed 5-year old attacking the pitch
shift wheel. I dare say though that with
‘Transhuman’, they’ve made something
that sounds like Daft Punk doing the
soundtrack to ‘Once Upon A Time In
The West’ instead of ‘Tron’ (+/-).

To show these kids
how it’s done, I turn
to ‘Túngata 1997
- 1998’ from
Weirdcore kid
Futuregrapher. A
4-track rub and tug
of total rinsin’ ambient drum and bass,
just like those old LTJ Bukem records
that I owned in 1996. ‘Cigarettes And
Asthma’ has a kinetic, throbbing
bassline, while ‘Fólk (Hemmi & Valdi)’
has a cocktail jazz sample I swear
comes from Sting’s ‘Englishman in
New York’. (+).
links
Yoda Remote - http://www.myspace.
com/yodaremote
Norsu - http://www.myspace.com/
lokirecordings
Jungle fiction – http://www.myspace.
com/junglefiction
Futuregrapher - http://www.futureg-
rapher.com
- BoB clunESS
Aural leftovers:
computer lust
Melchior is one of those prototype
renaissance artist groups, consisting
of multi-instrument-wielding folks
performing music as vehicle poetry.
Or is it the other way around? Sounds
like a multitude of current indie/al-
ternative groups that frequent these
pages, right? Thing is, the two albums
re-issued on this double album were
originally let loose on the public in
1980, hence the name.
The group doesn’t fit into any
particular genre or style. The music is
all over the place: folky, proggy, and
acoustic, there’s a bit of rock, a bit of
pop and tons of annoying-as-hell. Yes.
After 38 songs from an aimless “sound
world”, saturated with playfulness and
quirks, I turn into a bitter sailor that
would love nothing more than to put
these artsy-farts on a raggedy fishing
vessel.
But ‘1980’ is a pretty remarkable
document of an era gone by, a glimpse
into an art scene that was. It has an air
of sincerity and innocence to it, emit-
ting more Iceland than most of today’s
acts. The booklet looks hideous but it
has lyrics and credits rudimentary for
a release like this, but no liner notes.
C’mon!
- BiRkiR FJAlAR ViðARSSon
Melchior
1980
The songs don’t stick but this re-
issue is juicy
Look at the CD design for We Made
God’s second album, with its bleak
monochromatic photography and rigid
lettering. They’re basically saying:
“We’re not fucking around here. This
is music for serious depressives. We’ve
even sampled the breakdown rant from
‘Network’!” Also their post-kreppa,
post-hardcore sound seems to have
imbibed some Weightgain 2000 in the
production stakes, with the guitars
less compressed and more powerful,
while the kick drum feels like getting
punched in the face with a tank.
At its best, IGC provides a decent
counterpoint to the major chord
brigade, all the while being merely
content to reside in its own desolate
little world.
- BoB clunESS
We Made God
It ś Getting Colder
wemadegod
Doom and Despair with a small D
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