Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.08.2015, Page 28

Breakfast
Brunch
Lunch
Happy Hour
Dinner
K-Bar is a gastro pub with a Korean, Japa-
nese, Icelandic inspired kitchen and quirky
cocktails. We have eight icelandic craft
beers on tap and over 100 types in bottles.
Open all day from breakfast to late night
snacks. K-Bar is located at Laugavegur 74.
Ask your reception how to find us or find us
on facebook.com/kbarreykjavik
Tonik Ensemble is a unique act, with
many distinguishing factors that set it
apart. Case in point: the stage was nota-
bly free of Macs and other Apple prod-
ucts, which is refreshing for a scene that
mostly consists of guys hunched over
laptops. Instead, sounds were tweaked
and samples set off in visible real time by
Anton and Hörður using physical con-
trollers, the show flowing like a smooth
DJ mix with no pauses between tracks.
Tumi’s eerie saxophone playing could only
be described as Lynchian, and Hörður's
vocals sounded like they were floating in
a vast ocean of manipulated melancholy.
If we had hats, we would take ’em off for
Tonik Ensemble’s live show—catch it if
you can!
In other electronic news, Reykjavík
musician Stefán Páll Ívarsson has been
making a buzz of late, releasing a slew of
great tracks as MSTRO. His latest offer-
ing, “All I See Is You” does not disappoint.
The tune is an extremely great-sounding,
left-leaning electronic pop gem, with the
vocals in the chorus manipulated beyond
recognition, giving a dark, somewhat
stalkerly edge to the otherwise sentimen-
tal line “All I see is you.” We look forward
for a full-length album from MSTRO, but
until then head down to YouTube for the
moody and dramatic video for “All I See
Is You.”
Great songs keep hitting us from out
of the blue these days. One such track
recently popped up courtesy of one
Hjalti Þorkelsson, formerly of the band
Múgsefjun. “Mælum myrkrið út” (“Let’s
Explore The Darkness”) is a delicate and
well-constructed indie-pop ballad. The
song itself is extremely catchy—in that
low-key Shins-slash-Belle and Sebastian
way—its lyrics a meditation on being a
social outcast in times when “Those who
own the world paint it in whichever co-
lours they choose.”
Óli Dóri and Davíð Roach document the
local music scene and help people dis-
cover new music at straum.is. It is asso-
ciated with the radio show Straumur on
X977, which airs every Monday evening
at 23:00.
Straumur’s favourite electronic album of 2015 (so far), ‘Snapshots’ by Tonik Ensemble, was celebrated with
a long-overdue release concert on August 6. Openers Asonat got people moving with their atmospheric
trip-hop, which is nicely reminiscent of Björk’s early solo work. Ensemble mastermind Anton Kaldal Ágústs-
son then took the stage along with singer Hörður (of M-Band fame) and saxophone player Tumi (from Grísa
lappalísa), performing a set of soulful techno that runs deep into the unknown registers of
human consciousness.
Photo
Thomas Humery
Words
Davíð Roach Gunnarsson & Óli Dóri
STRAUMUR
Snapshots
Of Excellence
Straumur radio show airs
Mondays on X977 at 23:00
Straumur www.straum.is
Logn come screaming through
the gates with a vicious noise
attack egged on by a pair of
voices battling to out-aggress
one another, like two demons in thumb-
screws howling insults at their tormentors.
The instruments flail about in a barely
controlled cacophony of pure punishment
and bestial beauty. While the songs are
based in grindcore, their manifestation is a
streamlined, even melodic form of power-
violence.
The result is as crushing as Logn’s
endless ideas are interesting. Fitted within
the context of their blunt-force live per-
formance, these tunes are guaranteed to
produce an outpouring of pores, along
with a collective catharsis of the crowd
every time Logn burn down their backline
on stage.
- BOGI BJARNASON
'Unortheta' is a forty-minute
frisson full of looming doom,
blasting fury, and cavernous
bellows that seem to emanate
from the deep, below.
The record’s atmospheric palette
ranges from the ethereal to the oppres-
sive, oftentimes simultaneously. The
strings pluck out atonal intricacies half-
hidden behind the thick curtain of bass
and errant melodies that tie the proceed-
ings together, like a singular, continuous
piece of infernal aural brooding.
This album is the culmination of a
band steeped in death metal tradition
throwing off the genre’s shackles and
painting a fresh narrative in hues of black
and blood. It is by no means easy listening.
Rather, it is a treasure trove of rewards for
your patient eardrums covered in high-
quality headphones late on a dark, star-
spangled night.
- BOGI BJARNASON
Logn
Shrine
‘Í sporum annara’
facebook.com/lognlognlogn
A band of youths punching way above their weight
‘Unortheta’
facebook.com/shrineiceland
Rewarding late-night listening
28 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 12 — 2015MUSIC