Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.01.2012, Side 20

20
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 1 — 2012
2011 | Music
4.333 Births in 2011. Down from
4.907 in 2010
Bored of year-end lists that usually don’t even
manage to tell half the story, we decided to attempt
a different approach at summing up 2011 in music.
Firstly, we got some of our most ardent music writ-
ers to pick just ONE Icelandic album from 2011 that
they felt was somehow significant or meaningful
and then write a short article about it; why they
felt it mattered, why it is important. Do note that
their instructions explicitly noted: “You don’t have
to pick THE BEST album of 2011, just one you feel is
particularly significant for some reason. You might
even hate the album you’re writing about.”
Then, we called up a bunch of musicians we know
and asked them to tell us about an album that
played a big part in their year for whatever reason.
We told them the albums didn’t need to have been
released in 2011 or anything—just to name an al-
bum that was important to them, and tell us why.
You can read the results in the next few pages.
BRIDGING THE GAp
Björk - Biophilia
By Bergrún Anna Hallsteinsdóttir
In all honesty, I haven’t listened very
consistently to ‘Biophilia,’ the latest
piece of aural artwork by Björk. It is
without a doubt a good album, but to
me it has an intensity to it that means
I have to be in a certain mood to hear
it, and therefore it hasn’t been on high
rotation in my music collection. In say-
ing this, it may seem strange that I feel
it has been one of the most important
albums produced this year. Presumably,
albums of importance are albums you
listen to a lot. Albums that speak to you
on a deeper level. Albums that move
you. That kinda thing. ‘Biophilia’ does
none of these things for me. However,
‘Biophilia’ is important on a different
level. All music aside, and to make a
rather grand statement, it is a water-
shed album of our time.
For those not in the know, as well
as being a standard CD release, Bio-
philia consists of a series of ten apps,
all housed in one ‘main’ app, which
correlate to the tracks of the album,
giving listeners the opportunity to in-
teract with, expand on and essentially
‘play’ with the album. It is not just an
album, but an evolving creation, in a
symbiotic relationship with its listeners.
What Björk has created is not just the
usual collection of tracks which form
an album, it is a multimedia experience.
While she may not be the first artist to
create this kind of app-album combo,
she is certainly the first to combine
the mediums of art and science on this
level.
Whilst I sing the praises of this tech-
no-triumph, I must say that musically, I
have mixed feelings about certain as-
pects of the digital age. It often seems
like despite all of technology’s positive
possibilities, we are heading down a
path of technological gluttony, ignoring
what is to be gained from the progress
we’ve made in favour of instant grati-
fication. Sometimes I miss the simple
pleasure found in the rhythm of taking
a vinyl LP out of its sleeve, putting it on
the turntable and hearing its satisfying
crackle and hiss as it begins to turn.
Am bored by the... easiness of things?
Sometimes.
However, with this album, I (gulp)
put my prejudices aside. We live in an
age of choice and opportunity, and
with ‘Biophilia,’ Björk is embracing the
positive possibilities of technology and
offering up a whole new musical expe-
rience, in a sense getting us to inter-
act with music again, but in a new way.
The strands of this digital era that Björk
grasps in her crafting of ‘Biophilia’—
interaction, innovation, creativity (to
name a few)—are things this generation
can be grateful for and are therefore
well worth employing in the creation of
an album.
What appeals to me so much with
‘Biophilia’ is this interactive nature of
it. It’s not just about plugging yourself
in and sitting there zoned out, drooling
slightly. There is something more to it.
A new path, a new direction. That
alone, without any musical genius in-
volved, is enough to make it an impor-
tant album. But further to this, it is also
one of those rare things which bridges
the gap between different worlds, con-
necting science, art and technology in
one fell swoop. And that is not to be
sneezed at.
Anna Margrét Björnsson - Two Step Horror
Dirty Beaches – Badlands (2011)
‘Badlands’ is the biggest hands-down
genius in the world as of late. As Dirty
Beaches, Alex Zhang Hungtai has cre-
ated a masterpiece, a very special album
and certainly one of the more important
releases of the last few years. This is in
part due to the fact that it circumvents
all the indie-clichés that have been ram-
pant for the past decade—it feels like Da-
vid Lynch crossed with Alan Vega and
Roy Orbison. A true diamond that appeals to me strongly.
Lára Rúnarsdóttir - Lára
PJ Harvey – Let England Shake (2011)
My album of 2011 is without doubt PJ
Harvey’s ‘Let England Shake.’ PJ Harvey
is my biggest musical influence and role
model. She is true to herself, provoca-
tive and fierce. The best thing about her
is that she dares, and is willing to make
mistakes. Seamus Murphy’s documen-
tary on the album, which was shown at
RIFF, further deepened my love for this
album.
The most wonderful things about it are how well orchestrated and ef-
fortless it is. PJ Harvey writes about tough subjects on this album, and she does it
without pretence or strain. An example: “I have seen and done things I want to forget;
soldiers fell like lumps of meat, blown and shot out beyond belief; arms and legs were
in the trees.”
This topic is no joke, but she manages to put it forth without overt drama. It’s life,
in all its seriousness.
A VERY UNKOSHER
COMEBACK
HAM get all significant on
our grills in 2011
By Rebecca Louder
I spent the better part of the autumn
tits-deep in local music, sifting through
the good, the bad and the barftasti-
cally ugly new albums on the market.
But out of the many, many Icelandic re-
cords that were released this past year
none have stood out as more distinc-
tive and notable to me than that great
old meaty band HAM’s ‘Svik, harmur og
dauði.’ Let’s be honest, very few artists
of any genre or status level can pull off
even a half-decent comeback album
after twenty years out of the studio, but
HAM are not just any band.
I had never even heard of them be-
fore July, when word came to me from
fellow writer Bob Cluness of their per-
formance at the last Eistnaflug festival—
a degenerate, debaucherous, giant den
of iniquity presided over by Sigurjón
Kjartansson’s doomy sermons and Ót-
tar Proppé’s wretched, crackling voice.
By the time their album was released at
the end of August, their first full-length
studio album in 22 years, this band’s
historical mystique had been so strong-
ly impressed on me that I was afraid it
was all just a crack-up.
But holy shit. This music has its own
aura. Having started out in the late ‘80s
as a group of slapdash, underdog rock-
ers, they were basically the most hated
band in the country when they put out
their first record. Reviled by critics and
music-lovers alike, they pretty much
went ahead without giving a shit and
managed to put out an album which
would enter the canon of local heavy
music and put them as the musical
centrepiece of one of Iceland’s most fa-
mous movies, ‘Sódóma Reykjavík.’ They
went as quickly as they came though,
leaving the faint smell of the smoke-
house in the air and dangling threats
of select reunion shows (which they
made good on to open for Rammstein
and such). They turned into some kind
of fatty, crispy unicorn.
So it seemed like no one really be-
lieved this album would ever happen
until it fucking happened. And once it
did it sort of took over. The music per-
fectly recaptured their original sound
combining grimy fun and sexy darkness
with the added heaviness that comes
with age, maturity and cynicism. They
have two decades under their belts of
wonderful and horrible life experiences
(if the title suggests anything, more of
the latter) and they translated it all into
an enjoyable, relatable and memorable
collection of fantastic rock songs.
Since its release, every show they’ve
played has been packed, the airplay has
been incredible and the response has
been nothing short of unbridled enthu-
siasm. The generation they influenced
on their first tour of duty were loyal
and they pulled in an entirely new set
of listeners with those just discovering
them. And with some of the members
dabbling about in municipal politics
too, they are set to leave a lasting mark
in more ways than one.
The meal will run out of meat even-
tually but grief, betrayal and death go
on forever.
SIGNIFICANT MUSIC
OF 2011
OUR ANNUAL SALE STARTS ON
MONDAY 09.01.2012
20-90% OFF
REGULAR CD PRICES
THIS IS FOR REAL
SKÓLVÖRUSTÍG 15, 101 REYKJAVIK AND HARPA CONCERT HALL