Reykjavík Grapevine - 29.07.2011, Page 32

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 11 — 2011
Laugavegur
Bankastræti
Hverfisgata
Læ
kja
rg
at
a
Pó
st
hú
ss
træ
ti
Vonarstræti
Austurstræti
HafnarstrætiAð
al
st
ræ
ti
Geirsgata
Harpa
Tryggvagata
G
ar
ða
st
ræ
ti
Find us at:
Tryggvagata 11, 101 Reykjavík
EXPERIENCE
THE FORCE
OF NATURE
Our two excellent films
on eruptions in Iceland
start on the hour every hour.
The films are shown in english
except at 09:00 and 21:00 when
they are in german.
Volcano House also has an excellent
café, Icelandic design shop and booking
service for travels within Iceland.
Opening hours: 8:30 - 23:00
www.volcanohouse.is
Music | Reviews
What is evident about Mr Jónsson is
that he has absolutely impeccable
taste. The title track's acoustic spins
on The Beatles' ‘Blackbird,’ ‘Ocean
Girl’ kicks off with the descending riff
from the verses of ‘Dear Prudence,’
also by The Beatles of course and
there's a heart-sinking moment at
the outset of ‘To Her’ where for a split
second it seems like JJ's going to
launch into ‘You've Gotta Hide Your
Love Away.’ By The Beatles.
But let's get one thing clear: this
boy can sing and his vocals are of that
lovely come-hither richness that slides
this debut album into the middle of
the pop arena, on a wave of gushing
oestrogen from his audience. There's
no reason with his nicey-wicey acous-
tically Maroon-y 5-ey melodies and
good looks he can't have a chance in
the mainstream. He knows how to (re)
write a song, and when the emotions
are real it's really emotional. ‘Ocean
Girl’ turns out to be an excellent thick-
textured piece with a crescendo build-
ing up to a very satisfying coda, and
final track ‘Miss You So’ is genuinely
moving. Although to be fair, it sounds
suspiciously like ‘Easy Like Sunday
Morning.’ By The Commodores.
- JOE SHOOMAN
Jón Jónsson
Wait For Fate
jonjonsson
A study in musical memetics.
Spacevestite
Spacevestite
spacevestite
Stay off the brown acid
maaaaaaaan...
Today the sun is shining, people are
smiling and the birds are singing. But
sod that, because the doom-meister
from Dalvík is back! Dathi’s latest
album continues where he left off at
his last one, ‘Self Portrait,’ by plough-
ing the lonely furrow of being Iceland’s
only true exponent of apocalyptic folk.
His lyrics have become even more
doom-laden, brutal and pitiless. With
titles such as ‘Killing Me,’ ‘Self Abuse’
and ‘Please Help Me Now,’ I’m actually
starting to be concerned for this guy’s
mental health.
Ironically, his music and songcraft
have gotten better. Although his voice
sometimes falters on the long notes
(such as on ‘Buried Alive’), the music
has a soft soothing feeling, with simple
plucked acoustic guitar and occa-
sional trumpet and accordion sound
drifting in an out like so many bad
memories.
I’m sure people will balk at the truly
suicidal tone of his music, but come
the clusterfucks of Menningarnótt and
Verslunarmannahelgi, you’ll be beg-
ging for this as your soundtrack!
- BOB CLUNESS
Dathi
Dark Days
www.dnj-records.com
Don’t fight it. Just let go. Head
towards the light and it’ll all be
over soon
What do you do when you want to get
stoned and lost on a beach in Cali-
fornia in the sixties but you are stuck
in Hafnarfjörður? I don’t know, but if
the end result is the self-titled album
by Spacevestite, I’d seriously consider
laying off that shit.
How do we start? Is it the band’s
name, with its obvious and laboured
hints at deviance? Or could it be
their sound, trying to be swirling,
psychedelic pop, but with annoying
keyboards, Mick Jagger impersonation
vocals, and production that makes it
sound like a busted fly in a tin can?
Or perhaps it’s the corny and hack-
neyed ideas of what psychedelia is
supposed to be, from their song titles
(‘Sexedelic Dance Party’) to their
lyrics (“I am stone away from home/
when I’m in the twilight stone.” Really?
I mean, REALLY?).
Basically this is an album from
people who want to be all groovy and
sexy, but only learned psychedelia
from watching Austin Powers movies.
We put Kula Shaker to the sword for
crap like this, so I see no reason to
stop right now.
- BOB CLUNESS
The Radical Summer Univer-
sity, organised by a group
of leftists from academia
and activist groups, will take
place in August with a wide variety of
workshops on different topics, from
grass roots publishing to Marxism,
psychoanalysis and radical feminism.
Blogger and pundit Egill Helgason
remarked that this was great news
because Icelandic leftists had often
confused nationalism with radicalism.
Indeed, this is important news. It
is a sign of the growing vitality and
strength of left wing activism in Ice-
land, and it demonstrates that at least
part of it is rediscovering what ‘radical-
ism’ means. After the fall of the Berlin
Wall, many believed that leftist politics
and all leftist ideology had been com-
pletely discredited. The ‘third way’ was
king and men like Tony Blair seemed
like the future of the left.
In Iceland, this process appeared
in the formation of the Social Demo-
cratic Alliance out of the two left wing
parties, the heirs to the Socialist Party,
the People’s Alliance, and the Social
Democratic People’s Party, as well as
the Women's List, a feminist party and
The Nationalist Movement, a splinter
group of the People's Alliance.
The new party followed a classic
centrist ‘third way’ policy. A few left-
ists refused to join, forming the Left
Greens. And since the new Social
Democratic Alliance was not really a
leftist party, the Left Greens were re-
ally the only Icelandic left wing party.
But it was not a very radical party.
And since it came to power follow-
ing the financial crash it has shown a
remarkable lack of ideological vision.
Even if a handful of its MPs have dem-
onstrated that they have a grasp of left
wing ideology, the party leadership
has by and large failed to provide any
kind of, well leadership, when it comes
to ideology.
What it has demonstrated is that it is
good at management. The party chair-
man, Minister of Finance Steingrímur J.
Sigfússon, has been able to get state
finances under control. Judging by the
price of Credit Default Swaps (CDS) on
Icelandic government bonds, a mea-
surement frequently cited by Sigfús-
son himself, the government has been
pretty successful. At the end of June
they were down to 240 points, the level
they were at in early 2008, down from
the 1000 of early 2009, and well below
the cost of CDSs on many other West-
ern European countries, meaning that
international capital markets have a
pretty favorable view of Icelandic state
finances.
But as the party of the left, the Left
Greens must point to something apart
from competent management or its
ability to please the global capital mar-
ket. Many of its supporters seem to be-
lieve this ‘something’ is the fact that the
party is denying the Conservatives a
grip on power. In fact, the one overrid-
ing concern of many of its most ardent
supporters seems to be that the con-
servatives must be kept out of power.
Sure, one can make the argument
that by this the Left Greens are deny-
ing the Conservatives the opportunity
to wreak further havoc. But denying
another party access to power this is
still very poor justification for a political
party because at the end of the day it is
politics for the sake of power.
So, the party appears to offer only
two things: competent leadership and
the fact that they are not the conserva-
tive party. But no positive vision for the
future.
What the party elite and its most
dedicated supporters do not seem to
understand is that a chief strength
of the conservative party is the fact
that it has an ideology. This ideology,
centered around neoliberal economic
policies, inspires an active radical base
and provides the actions of the party
with purpose and direction. While its
politics have been focused on gain-
ing, maintaining and then using power,
it has also been infused with a strong
ideological vision.
Now unless the Icelandic left wants
to move to the center, it is probably
stuck with the Left Greens as its only
alternative to the Conservatives, or the
only available vehicle to fight against
right wing laissez fare economic poli-
cies. But if this party has no ideology
or vision, it will never offer much of an
alternative; in order to be a real alter-
native, the left has to be able to offer a
real alternative vision! And this means
a left wing ideology, which the institu-
tional left in Iceland appears to lack.
Of course it would be silly to expect
that a leftist summer university in radi-
calism will change this as most of the
attendees will already be committed
radicals. But, it is nonetheless an im-
portant first step toward an ideological
awakening on the left.
Opinion | Magnús Sveinn Helgason
A Lesson In Radicalism