Reykjavík Grapevine - 19.05.2017, Side 27

An emerging electronic act with an
eccentric name caught our eye re-
cently: two guys who go by the names
of Johnny Blaze & Hakki Brakes. They
just put out two music videos, and
one of the songs is an ode to an always
popular penetrating oil. The sonic
vibe of “WD-40” is all new-romance,
‘Miami Vice and muscle cars, but the
video in contrast features very goofy
and lo-fi 360-degree wackiness, set in
an auto repair shop. The other song
is called “Feng Sví” (“Feng shui”),
and also sports 80s-sounding synths
and tongue-in cheek lyrics—but the
video is a still frame of the two guys
in turtlenecks in front of a map of
Europe, singer Johnny Blaze hold-
ing a cat and stroking it in his best
sinister Godfather/Dr Evil imitation.
Katrín Helga Andrésdóttir, a mem-
ber of rap groups Reykjavíkurdætur
and Hljómsveitt, recently put out a
four-song solo micro-EP, clocking in
at just four minutes, forty-five sec-
onds. It’s called “Ég hefði átt að fara
í verkfræði” (“I should have studied
engineering”), and in the first song—
which is only 40 seconds long—she
sings about her mom having been 24
when she gave birth to her, who is
now 24 herself but has no money and
lives in a basement, because she didn’t
study medicine like her mom did. It’s
uber-cutesy with high-pitched vocals
and trebly keyboards sprinkled all
over it. In “Djammviskubit” (a special
Icelandic term for a bad conscience
after too much partying), she sings
“About once a week she poisons her-
self, puts on a tight black dress and
red lipstick, takes in the poison, some-
times alone—sometimes with others,
she is free.” It’s unabashedly “krútt,”
which is sort of refreshing in this age
of macho hip-hop and slick electro,
and the super-short running time is
an interesting approach to the usu-
ally rigid forms of “song” and “album.”
A surprise summer festival was
just announced: Night + Day, hosted
by one of our favourite indie groups of
the past decade, The xx. Located right
by the beautiful waterfall Skógafoss
in the south of Iceland, the festival
boasts a selection of domestic and
international bands handpicked by
The xx, who fell in love with the place
when they came to Iceland a few years
ago to record at Greenhouse Studios,
operated by the label Bedroom Com-
munity. The xx are playing, naturally,
alongside wunderkind rapper Earl
Sweatshirt of Odd Future fame, Brit-
ish soul phenomenon Sampha, indie
rockers War Paint, and of course The
xx’s own Jamie xx, in his solo guise.
There is no way it will be anything
other than a blast by the waterfall.
Iceland Trolls Venice
Biennale
Egill Sæbjörnsson’s trolls run amok
It is no coincidence, argues Egill Sæb-
jörnsson, a Berlin-based conceptual
artist and Iceland’s representative
at the 57th Venice Biennale, that the
country’s busiest years for tourism
have accompanied a record-breaking
rise in the number of “lost and dead
people.” Trolls are not so easily swayed
by foreign currency, after all.
The Icelandic Pavilion at the Venice
Biennale has been lauded—and criti-
cised—for its provocative contribu-
tions to the festival in the past. 2015
saw Venice officials shut down Swiss-
Icelandic artist Christoph Büchel’s
conversion of a deconsecrated Catho-
lic church into a working mosque—a
controversy which arguably only rein-
forced the project’s critique of institu-
tionalised prejudice.
This year’s Pavilion exhibition is, at
first glance, less wilfully provocative
than the mosque project. Upon closer
inspection, however, it becomes clear
that Egill’s contribution to the Bien-
nale, ‘Out of Controll in Venice’, asks
perhaps even more difficult questions
about the nature of authorship and
the relationship between the real and
the imaginary. That’s thanks to the
creative “input” of two technicolour
trolls-turned-artists, Ūgh and Bõögâr.
“Even Egill, who believes that every-
thing is connected, that art pervades
life (and vice versa) and
holds humanity togeth-
er, that all boundaries
are imaginary, even he
is repeatedly surprised
by the trolls’ tricks, brainwaves, and
talents,” remarks Stefanie Böttcher,
Director of Kunsthalle Mainz and the
curator of the Icelandic Pavilion. “Ūgh
and Bõögâr are literally overwhelm-
ing.”
Claiming to straddle the boundar-
ies between fiction and nonfiction, re-
ality and imagination, real friends and
imaginary ones, Ūgh and Bõögâr first
“met” Egill in 2008. Instead of eating
him, Egill claims, the trolls decided to
become Egill’s friends and share his
art studio. The mixed media projects
Egill has developed in the trolls’ name
span music (a thirteen-track howling
twig-funk album), sculpture (gigantic
screaming troll heads scattered across
Venice), fashion (in collaboration with
Eygló, winner of Grapevine’s Fashion
Design of the Year 2016), and even vir-
tual reality. Using this array of media
and technology to explore binaries and
cultural cognitive dissonance, ‘Out of
Controll’ takes cues from Egill’s ear-
lier work in mixing video projection
with sculpture and painting. He de-
scribes his technique as a “technologi-
cal continuation of painting,” under-
pinned by his belief that all art is alive.
Björg Stefánsdóttir, the director of
the Icelandic Art Centre, remarks that
“the Icelandic Pavilion has frequently
been a venue for dissolving social con-
structs—whether they be ideologies,
nationalist sentiments, or the myth
of the artist. This tradition has been
taken to a whole new level with ‘Out
of Controll in Venice’, where all social
constructs are annihilated as we let
the unchecked creative powers of Ūgh
and Bõögâr take over.”
As one steps through the long
strands of troll hair guarding the ex-
hibition entrance, the tactile and visu-
al manifestations of Ūgh and Bõögâr
at the Pavilion might
do more than just take
over—these multitudi-
nous, hyper-real trolls
f rom t he Ic el a nd ic
countryside are threatening to sink
Venice once and for all.
Words:
Óli Dóri &
Davíð Roach
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Words:
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27
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about WD-40 and
djammviskubit
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Eatin' Good Tonight!
Matartími #5
May 21, 18:30, Dill, 25.000 ISK
If you’ve always dreamt of a Lucul-
lan seven-course meal with all
the best the Nordic shores have
to offer, this year’s instalment of
Ragnar Eíríksson and Kex Hos-
tel’s restaurant pop-up series
Matartími will be an oneiric feast
to remember. Contact Dill or Kex
to secure a seat and get ready to
enchant your palate and inebriate
your senses. AD
No Sleep For The Cult
Skrattar Album Release Concert
May 27, 22:00, Gaukurinn, 1.000 ISK
The talented trio behind Skrattar
seem never to tire—they’re known
for staying up for days at a time
and punching people onstage.
So drop by Gaukurinn for two
or three shots and reward their
hard work on Saturday night with
(hopefully) no violence. Whether
you’ll be shaking your fist like
so, dancing your clothes off with
vigour or shyly nodding your head
to the music it’s safe to say you
won’t regret a minute of it. AD
Guys Go FAB
FAB Party - Men Only
May 27, 22:00, Ægisgarður, 2.000 ISK
Did you attend the Men Only party
in Ægisgarður in December? If
not, make sure you redeem your-
self. Join other handsome men like
you and FAB away to the beats of
DJ Bistro Boy and DJ Dramatik.
Psst! Rumour has it there will be
a top secret performance, too:
it’s bound to be nothing less than
FAB! AD