Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.04.2017, Side 24

Kalifornía Dreaming
Icelandic musicians take on LA at
the Reykjavík Festival

Words: Eli Petzold Photos: Craig T. Mathew / Mathew Imaging
“Welcome to Iceland. Don’t like the
weather? Wait fifteen minutes.”
So goes the clichéd joke about Ice-
land’s capricious meteorological
tendencies—windy and wet one
moment, sunny and still the next,
but never comfortable enough for
shorts. As a spring storm snowed,
sleeted, and rained on Iceland this
year, the core of the country’s mu-
sic scene escaped to Los Angeles,
a city where clear skies and warm
sunshine are predictable to the
point of tedium. For ten days this
April, the Los Angeles Philhar-
monic teamed up with Icelandic
musicians to present the Reykjavík
Festival in the whimsical, glim-
mering Walt Disney Concert Hall
in downtown Los Angeles.
The programme for the festi-
val, curated by composer Daníel
Bjarnason and LA Phil’s Conduc-
tor Laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen,
was about as multifaceted as the
concert hall’s sumptuous, reflec-
tive façade. The festival’s opening
night, entitled “Made in Iceland,”,
exhibited the brand of Icelandic
pop, folk, and electronic music
that is perhaps most familiar
to audiences outside of Iceland:
mainstays of the internationally
known Icelandic music scene such
as múm and amiina joined new-
comers like JFDR and dj. flugvél
og geimskip, who have just begun
to appear on the international
radar. Three concerts of classical
and choral music presented the
works of contemporary Icelandic
composers; three more nights of
contemporary classical Icelandic
music featured Sigur rós, accom-
panied by the LA Phil, playing old
works arranged for orchestra by
indie darlings like Owen Pallett
and Dan Deacon.
For t he fest i-
v a l ’s conclud i ng
c onc er t , Ic e l a n-
dic label Bedroom
Community docked
in the concert hall
a s pa r t of t hei r
tenth-anniversary
W ha le Watch i ng
Tour, showcasing
their gleeful, play-
ful disregard for
traditional generic distinctions.
“Contemporary classical” is al-
most too reductionist a term to
characterise the nimble blend of
orchestral, electronic, pop, and
folk music characteristic of the
label’s roster. Although the bulk
of the festival is over, a collabora-
tion between the LA Phil and Björk
and the LA iteration of her virtual-
reality based installation, ‘Björk:
Digital’, will extend the festival
well into May.
A genre beyond genres
The festival’s organisers were ea-
ger to display the unique way in
which Icelandic mu-
sicians blur bound-
aries between musi-
cal genres that are
often considered
distinct. “What we
categorise as this or
that kind of music
in the States—those
distinctions don’t
ex ist i n Iceland,
which is extraordi-
nary and outstand-
ing,” remarks Johanna Rees, LA
Phil’s Director of Presentations,
who coordinated the pop acts in-
volved in the festival. “The goal of
the festival,” she says, “is about
exhibiting a unique perspective or
tone of voice and not at all about
whether something is considered
pop or classical.” The ease with
which genres overlap and cross-
over, she observes, stems from the
personal relationships between
Icelandic artists: “Sure, just be-
cause it’s a small country doesn’t
mean everyone knows everyone—
but the musicians from Reykjavík
all really do know each other.”
Stateside, the distinction “Ice-
landic music” seems to supersede
concerns about genre. Johanna ac-
knowledges that Icelandic music
carries a certain cultural cachet.
“It’s compelling enough just to say
it’s Icelandic,” she says, and sug-
gests that that status helped draw
Angelenos to see unfamiliar, up-
and-coming acts on the festival’s
opening night.
Sigtryggur Baldursson, the
Managing Director of Iceland Mu-
sic Export (IMX), and an ex-Sugar-
cube, likewise notes the sense of
an Icelandic music genre that
defies familiar categories. That
genre, he says, “is a trademark
that wasn’t consciously manufac-
tured, like some of the tourism
campaigns in Iceland. It has arisen
naturally.” With IMX, he’s been
networking with Hollywood mu-
sic supervisors seeking to incor-
porate Icelandic music into film
and television. “Music supervisors
tend to categorise music accord-
Culture Feature
“The
musicians
from Reykja-
vík all really
do know each
other.”
amiina perform inside an
installation by Shoplifter