Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.12.2015, Side 38

Hverfisgata
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smiðjust.
Baldu
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Braga
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sæ
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Nd
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Osushi is a unique rest aurant in Iceland.
The met hod of dining involves snatching
small plates from a conveyor belt. Pricing is
distinguished by the color and pattern of the
plate – most range between 230 - 440 ISK.

Everything off the con vey or belt is tasty
and if you don’t really fancy sushi, you can
instead choose for ex ample teriyaki chicken,
noodle salad, tempura and desserts.

The vibe in Osushi is friendly and relaxed.
The restaurant is located almost next door to
Althingi (the parliament) which is in the
heart of the city.
osushi.is
Pósthússtræti 13 / Borg rtúni 29 / Reykjavíkurvegur 60 HF.
Tel: 561 0562 / www.osushi.is
Album
Reviews
So, there's an anonymous,
experimental electro-R&B
group called Vaginaboys, and
they have an EP out entitled
‘Icelandick’. I feel like, you know, what
more information could you possibly need
on the subject, but as Vaginaboys are
clearly setting out to perfect some kind
of post-modern pop formula by releasing
an actually quite listenable collection of
woozy, psychedelic, crystalline synth-
driven torch songs on a record with not
one, but two references to genitalia in the
title, I might as well dissect them the best
that I can.
The record opens with “Þú ert svo
ein,” which literally opens with the line,
“Ha ha ha/Vagina Boys/Ha ha ha ha ha
ha,” thusly training its ironic eye onto itself
in a swiftly expanding black hole of “Is
this something I am actually listening to
right now?” But here's the catch: it's not a
joke. At all. It's plaintive and moving, every
song a sparse celebration of loneliness
or love or something decidedly un-silly
sung into a vocoder, simple, DIY beats
and synth lines subtly driving every track
into something almost resembling dance
music. The album's high point is its closer,
“Stjörnur,” the closest Vaginaboys get to a
party track, if the party is just you in your
room being slightly ashamed about how
much porn is on your computer. We've all
been there, and Vaginaboys decided to
stay.
- CAMERON COOK
Vaginaboys
‘Icelandick’
www.soundcloud.com/vaginaboys
With every song a sparse
celebration of loneliness or
love, Vaginaboy’s ‘Icelandick’
is no joke.
Released for a recent Airwaves,
‘Höfnin Hljómar’ (or ‘Harbor
Sounds’) is a sampler of some
of Iceland’s experimental
electronic musicians.
“Sampler” is putting it lightly, as the wide
variety of techniques and outcomes on
the fourteen-track album range from
“The Harbour V2,” an aggressively
strummed electric guitar soundscape
from two members of industrial/hardcore
bands; to the cute, quirky synth piece
“Mephisto” from the multi-stylistic Jónas
Sen.
And then there is everything in
between. The album sets up two poles
of electronic music, with tracks generally
falling to one end or another. At one
end, we have very active and aggressive
sounds/techniques; and the other,
minimal, soft, ambient textures. At the
active end are the industrial tracks, and
works like “Trade Intensity” by Auxpan
(Elvar Már Kjartansson), an almost static-
like piece that uses the left and right
stereo speakers quite sneakily. At the
ambient end, “Raven” by Þorkell Atlason
is the most harmony-based track on the
album, as if a Bach fugue was filtered
down to a watery wash of pure tones.
There are a few moments where
the two ends of the sound spectrum meet
in the middle, and the results are varied.
Pleasantly surprising is “Reverse” from
Björk Viggósdóttir, which uses coarse,
aggressive glitches but in slow tempo. It
has a filmic quality—one could imagine
it over the end credits of some techno-
futurist tale. “Administrating I” by Inside
Bilderberg is the closest to mainstream
EDM (electronic dance music) on the
sampler, but even this track remains a bit
lost in an ambient-tribal subgenre. Less
palatable is “Fjörgyn” by Stereo Hypnosis,
which mostly sounds dated, like a 1980s
technology upgrade that made it into the
late 90s.
Coming from such a small
community, there’s bound to be
personnel overlap on tracks, which can
start to feel insular. That said, the diversity
of backgrounds of the musicians make up
for the narrower roster. Some musicians
are just starting out, and others are
seasoned veterans. Some have formal
educations, and some just take risks
and see what happens. In the end, the
resulting electronic soundscapes are as
diverse as any other genre of Icelandic
music today.
- NATHAN HALL
Various Artists
'Höfnin Hljómar
Electronic Music from Iceland’
Music to not really dance to
Fufanu evolved out of Captain Fufanu, a
two-piece techno production team that
rose to prominence in Reykjavík’s electro
scene at the beginning of the decade.
Opting to ditch the mixing deck for a
backing band, Fufanu churn out sparse,
distorted post-punk on their debut LP,
‘Few More Days To Go’. The supply of
angular, droning rock music has been
sparse of late, and as a result Fufanu
sound quite fresh in certain parts of the
album—despite being decidedly retro.
Mid-album track “Blinking,” particularly,
comes off as something the Velvet
Underground would have jotted down in
their more heroin-soaked years, with lead
singer Kaktus Einarsson's dripping drawl
pointedly leading the rest of the band
into the gloom. The remnants of Fufanu's
past lives as electronic musicians give
the album a certain edge, however it
turns out that there is such a thing as too
good a Peter Murphy impersonation, and
songs like “Circus Life,” which laments
that “a circus job is a circus life,” can get a
little bogged down in the emotional mire.
With rare exceptions, few bands
have sincerely attempted to resurrect
proto-goth musical aesthetics, and
for that Fufanu should be applauded.
“Plastic People” has a determined hint
of Gary Numan, all robotic paranoia
and shuddering synthesizers. It has
the desired effect, and demonstrates a
direction that Fufanu will hopefully follow
as they release more music: thrilled,
stuttering, slightly scary and scared.
- CAMERON COOK
Fufanu
'Few More Days To Go'
One Little Indian; 2015
Robotic paranoia,
shuddering synths:
Fufanu’s début is
ultimately rewarding
Re-visit!