Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.03.2017, Síða 38

Music
Ethereal Echoes In
The Upside Down
Five things we learned at Sónar Reykjavík 2017

Words: Grayson Del Faro, Joanna Smith, John Rogers,
Ragnar Egilsson, Rex Beckett Photo Art Bicnick
Last month saw the annual Sónar
Reykjavík Festival roll into town
and take over the halls of Harpa.
We sent several writers and pho-
tographers into the fray to report
back daily on what was going on.
Here are five things they learned
at Sónar Reykjavík 2017.
1. Authoritarian pop:
it’s a thing
Hatari’s drummer stands topless
and largely unmoving, wearing
a spiked leather facemask, as if
plucked straight from the set of
‘Mad Max 2’. The two vocalists are
an utter contrast: one is a flam-
boyant, whirling presence with a
beautiful falsetto voice; the other
stands almost completely still, his
face resting in an almost-grimace,
surveying the audience coldly and
occasionally bursting into a fierce
rant in a grating voice. Hatari’s au-
thoritarian aesthetic is inherently
theatrical, but it also manages to
be oddly unsettling: this is art pop
for our contemporary dystopia. JR
2. Or is it?
Hatari’s glossy art-school take on
industrial music has earned some
criticism from the goth camp, but
it ’s certainly catchy
enough to be—nearly—
accessible. That was the
best part: locked out
of the anti-capitalist
lyrics and cheeky digs
at the audience, the
non-Icelandic speak-
ers looked hilariously
perplexed at how they
found themselves ac-
tually grooving to two kinda gay
Nazis and Bane from Batman on-
stage. GDF
3. Samaris are
stranger things
Samaris were my highlight. Their
otherworldly, ethereal sound, full
of synth echoes, made me feel like
I’d been transported to the Upside
Down, and I didn’t want to leave. Jó-
fríður Ákadóttir’s captivating and
evocative vocals combined with
Áslaug Rún Magnúsdóttir’s clari-
nets and Þórður Kári Steinþórsson
aka Doddi’s electronic elements
left people stumbling out of the
room, as if coming out of a trance.
It was pure magic. JS
4. aYia are a unicorn
The lights drop and two black
hoodie-clad guys take up their
synth stations and the music omi-
nously rolls in like a rogue wave.
I can hear frontwoman Ásta Fan-
ney’s unmistakable breathy squeak
creeping out from somewhere but
I can’t see her yet; still I am com-
pletely spellbound by
whatever spells she’s
casting from the shad-
ows of the stage. When
she finally appears she
glides around the stage
like a marble on a ship,
interchanging between
soft spoken whispers to
light airy singing that
perfectly juxtaposes
with the dark pulsing beats and
low gut-rattling synth riffs. aYia,
as a band, is a unicorn, and I gaze
in wonderment, wanting to be able
to touch this intangible beauty. RX
5. The kids are alright
I came to a conclusion at Sónar, af-
ter colliding with a few stragglers
that seemed desperately out of
place at some of the more esoteric
gigs. You see, the Sónar brand is a
38The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 03 — 2017
“...Topless
and largely
unmoving,
wearing a
spiked leath-
er facemask”
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