Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.03.2016, Side 34

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NATIONAL PARK
kef LAVIK:
The Voice Of A
(de)Generation
The find of February for us was lo-
cal band kef LAVÍK. Although they
didn’t perform at Sónar, they were
there in spirit, as a song they pro-
duced and performed on was a part
of the Vaginaboys show. They sound
like a more gangsta Vaginaboys
crossed with a soft and sincere ver-
sion of Gísli Pálmi, and make won-
derfully strange and detached ab-
surdist pop music about love, money,
drugs and sex, sung through the
voice of a (de)generation: auto-tune.
They recently released the ‘Mér líður
vel’ (“I Feel Good”) EP on Sound-
cloud, and it’s a delight from start to
finish. The first track, “Ung og Sexý”
(“Young and Sexy”), is an infectious
meditation on the emptiness of exis-
tence that has one of the bleakest open-
ings we’ve heard in a while: “We take
a loan before the weekend to afford
our drugs/She hates me but likes my
friends and I really don’t mind.”
“Þegar mér líður vel (money lifir
alltaf ),” which translates as “When
I Feel Good (Money Always Lives),”
is a downtempo trap banger about
cruising through Keflavík with your
girlfriend, a machine gun, and a case
of beer. The chorus goes: “Us two al-
ways evaporate like water drops/
We are exactly the same/garbage
and gemstones,” before ending with
a synth drop of epic proportions. The
highlight, though, is the quite liter-
ally named “We Use Drugs.” It starts
with keyboard chords and vocals la-
menting a love/hate relationship be-
fore the bass and some funky guitars
join the mix. Then the chorus slaps
you in the face with hard-hitting
drums, complex arpeggiated synth
lines and the words “When YOU
look at me that WAY/I feel SOME-
THING. But it doesn’t change that I
hate you/WE USE DRUGS!/exactly
to forget that fact,” giving the capi-
talised words that extra auto-tune
tweak that sends them over the edge.
The aforementioned Vaginaboys
collaboration is also on their Sound-
cloud, which you should be banging
into your browser right now (sound-
cloud.com/kef-lavik). This music is
just the right amount of weird and
catchy—look out for kef LAVÍK in the
near future.

New Tonik
The Reykjavík electronic shaman
Tonik Ensemble, who had a tre-
mendous set at Sónar Reykjavík last
month, just remixed the song “Alma
M.” from the album ‘Where Are You
Now’ by the Genoa-based electron-
ica and post-rock band port-royal.
Tonik took the original bright track
and made it into a dark, mid-tempo
techno masterpiece.
The song was released on ‘You
Ware Nowhere’, the remix companion
to port-royal's critically acclaimed al-
bum, that came out last Friday.
STRAUMUR
Words: Davíð Roach Gunnarsson & Óli Dóri Straumur radio show airs Mondays on X977 at 23:00 www.straum.is