Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.06.2011, Síða 26

26
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 7 — 2011
Licensing and
registration of travel-
related services
The Icelandic Tourist Board issues licences to tour operators and travel agents,
as well as issuing registration to booking services and information centres.
Tour operators and travel agents are required to use a special logo approved
by the Icelandic Tourist Board on all their advertisements and on their Internet
website.
Booking services and information centres are entitled to use a Tourist
Board logo on all their material. The logos below are recognised by the
Icelandic Tourist Board.
List of licenced Tour
Operators and Travel
Agencies on:
visiticeland.com
www.geysir.is
call: 894 44 55
every
trip is an
adventure
rent your
ride with us
Pósthússtræti 13
101 Reykjavík
Tel: +354 551 1800
www.gamla.is
sushismiðjan
Veislubakkar
pantanir í síma
517 3366
www.sushismidjan.is
Comic | Megan Herbert
Tryggvi Hübner is an accomplished
guitar player. He’s tactful, tasteful
and many other positive adjectives
that end in -ful. And he’s skilled as a
motherfucker. But here’s the kicker:
his ambitious and dynamic record is
so harmless and diluted that it goes
by without you noticing, making
Mannakorn sound like the Melvins in
comparison. Nine instrumental origi-
nals and two covers, including Free’s
‘Wishing Well’ do little to put fire under
this particular ass.
This is music scored for advertise-
ments geared toward pensioners
looking into retirement plans. There’s
not much else to say about it unless
you want to talk about individual per-
formances (which all are amazing) by
his schooled comrades that make up
his band or if we desire to dissect the
production. But I wont, because you
can already predict how it all goes.
Music this lush and controlled poses
no challenge for the listener, and at the
same token it is not very comforting
either because there’s nothing to grab
onto. With not a hint of ambiguity and
absence of any gusto it fizzles out into
obscurity.
- BIRKIR FJALAR VIðARSSON
Tryggvi Hübner
2.0
www.tryggvihubner.com
Ambitious elevator music
Music | Reviews
Two Step Horror: Living
Room Music
The sound is big, cavernous and
ghosting, recorded in the biggest
hall in the world and drips with
reverb. It all feels light, mysterious
and occasionally very sensual.
Dead Skeletons: Dead
Magick I & II
Not perfect, but a decent
soundtrack for tripping nonetheless
It’s been a busy time recently over at
the local leather-clad sex ‘n’ death col-
lective, commonly known as Vebeth.
The last month has seen two releases
from artists within the collective, both
exploring the darker side of rock with
varying results.
First up is ‘Living Room Music’ from
Two Step Horror, who are the duo of
Þórður Grímsson and Anna Margrét
Björnsson. Using ‘50s rock sounds as
their music substrate (most evident
on tracks such as ‘Wray’ and ‘Dusty
Strands’), they meld more contem-
porary sounds such as shoegaze and
dream pop on top. You can really hear
this on tracks such as the opener
‘Ambeth’ and ‘Song For You’, which
feels more like The Cocteau Twins
performing the soundtrack to a David
Lynch movie. You can almost imagine
yourself wearing leather gloves while
cruising the night streets looking for
something bad to get up to.
If Two Step Horror is all about sex/
David Lynch, then Dead Skeletons are
all death/Jim Jarmusch. The creation
of Henrik ‘Singapore Sling’ Björnsson
and Jón Sæmundur (aka artist Nonni
Dead), their album ‘Dead Magick I
& II’ is the latest in the psych rock
continuum that started with the Velvet
Underground/13th Floor Elevators,
passing through Spacemen 3 / The
Black Angels / Brian Jonestown Mas-
sacre. They’ve also shovelled on a
heap of eastern mysticism and sounds
to the point it literally creaks from the
weight of the symbolism.
The first and third section of the
album is rather enjoyable. ‘Dead
Mantra’ is a gleeful realisation of The
Crystals performing a sky burial on
Iggy Pop, while ‘Dead Magick II’ is a
beautiful coda of nature sounds with
booming Tibetan trumpets. However
it sags badly in the middle, with tracks
such as ‘Dead Magic I’ not making
the cut, while lines like “Come to my
world of death” (on ‘Psychodead´), are
mumbled with a real lack of conviction.
Also, at nearly an hour and 15 min-
utes long, it make the likes of Agent
Fresco’s album feel like The Minute-
men’s ‘Paranoid Time EP’.
- BOB CLUNESS
Dead Reckoning
The Vebeth collective take you for a ride
to rock’s dark side..