Reykjavík Grapevine - Feb 2020, Page 24

Music
Rock and rollers Kaleo just
released their first song in
years. The band has been
incredibly busy and popular in the
American market, which is notoriously
hard for European acts to break in to.
The band has over five million monthly
listeners on Spotify. To put that into
context, our one and only, Björk, has
just over 1.5 million monthly listeners.
Then again, she doesn’t have Kaleo
frontman Jökull Júlíusson’s abs. Jökull
said in a recent interview that they
were finishing a new album that will
be released soon. VG
Everything that Hildur Gu!nadóttir
touches seems to turn into a music
award. Hildur had an incredible run in
2019, with her scores for the hit HBO
miniseries 'Chernobyl,' and block-
buster film 'Joker' winning multiple
trophies. She won a Bafta at the end of
January and is said to be likely to win
the Oscar for her music. This is written
before the Oscar ceremony, but we all
know how that’s gonna go. Go Hildur!
VG
Yeah, it’s that time of the year. When
we get half mashed-up pop weirdness
and glimmer TV. Eurovision is upon us.
It will be hard to follow up on the
success of Hatari that literally blew
the world away at the 2019 song
contest with their softspoken-tender-
unite-the-world-message ballad,
“Hatri! Mun Sigra.” RÚV announced
the songs that will vie to represent
Iceland in the Netherlands in May. Ten
songs are in the running, ranging from
dull cliches to a blind feminist to
punk-metal. That’s Eurovision for you
alright. VG
The summer concert schedule is
slowly filling out. This week, big gigs
were announced for Big Thief in Kefla-
vik's Music Museum venue Hljómahöll
for June 24th, while Explosions in the
Sky will host a unique retrospective
concert series in Harpa in early Au-
gust, where they'll go through their 20
year career over the course of three
nights. It's at the tail end of a tour, but
the three night retrospective is a one
off. SP
MUSIC
NEWS
Never Gone
Elín Ey is back with a new voice and a new style
Words: Josie Gaitens Photo: Art Bicnick
EP
'Gone' is available on streaming
services.
Elín Ey is hesitant as she attempts
to explain the origins of her new EP,
‘Gone.’ Granted, it’s been 11 years
since the songstress last released an
album, and it’s clear that the interlude
has been a time of growth and devel-
opment. To distill a decade down to
a few words seems, well, impossible.
Gone and reborn
“I was originally going to make an
Icelandic album actually,” Elín says,
referring to her hiatus. “Something
that was a combination of sing-
er-songwriter music and more elec-
tronic vibes. I have
a lot of songs and
was going to release
an album, but it just
didn’t sound right”.
Eventually, she
explains, she put
the stalled Icelan-
dic songs aside and joined up with
her brother. Together, they were
eventually able to find a sound-
scape and atmosphere that she was
happy with, and, in January, the
long-awaited ‘Gone’ was released.
The title is appropriate. Gone,
indeed, is the singer-songwriter,
folky tones of Elín’s past work. In-
stead, the soulful and bluesy ele-
ments of her style are paired with
a sleek, electronic sound. The
overall expression comes across as
polished, mature and deliberate.
But Elín is reluctant to pigeon-
hole herself into any particular style.
“When I was doing more folky stuff,
that’s definitely what I wanted to do
at the time. But also just being me
with the guitar—there came a point
where I felt kind of stuck in that gen-
re,” she admits. “Sometimes I feel like
you have to kind of sell yourself as
one genre, as a particular kind of art-
ist—but I’m trying to tell myself that
I can just do whatever I want to do.”
Finding the space
Releasing ‘Gone’ seems to have
cleared a space for Elín to explore
these different styles and ideas. In
her voice, there seems to be a pal-
pable sense of relief that the music
is finally released. Elín has very
high standards for herself and her
work. ‘Gone’ was originally meant
to be a full album,
she explains, but
just before it was re-
leased she stripped
it back to the five
track EP, saying she
just, “wasn’t hap-
py with all of it.”
“I have something in my mind
and it just takes time to find what
it is I’m looking for—and maybe
that is perfectionism, I don’t know,”
Elín says of her process. “I felt like
my mind was so set on an album,
but now that I’ve put [‘Gone’] out, I
feel more free to revisit this other
music and release it individually.”
In addition to the upcoming
release of new singles, Elin is put-
ting together a band and planning
live shows this summer. It seems
like Elín Ey is truly back, and this
time, she intends to stick around.
Elín Ey: Reborn again
“I’m trying to tell
myself that I can
just do whatever
I want to do.”
LIVE MUSIC & EV
EN
T
S
events venue
bar&
Tryggvagata 22, 101 Reykjavík
EVERY
TUESDAY
EVERY
MONDAY
KARAOKE PARTY
21.00 / FREE ENTRY
SOULFLOW COMEDY
WOMEN & QUEER
OPEN MIC STAND-UP
IN ENGLISH / 21.00 / FREE ENTRY
7/2
8/2
9/2
13/2
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16/2
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26/2
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29/2
6/3
BUSHFIRE RELIEF FUNDRAISER
JONO DUFFY, KIMI TAYLER, HANS, JENNY PURR,
SAKARIS, HÖGNI , DJ YAMAHO, DJ MARGEIR
RVK WINTER FESTIVAL: RAVE AFTER-
PARTY WITH PLÚTÓ DJ-CREW
BÚKALÚ VARIETY SHOW
DEBAUCHERY, BURLESQUE, VARIETY, COMEDY
OPEN JAM SESSION
DRAG-SÚGUR QUEER VARIETY SHOW
MONTHLY DRAG EXTRAVAGANZA
KISIMJA & GUESTS
BOARD-GAME NIGHT
BOY (PARTY COVER BAND)
AXEL DIEGO & GUESTS
SONGWRITER NIGHT
VIDEO-GAME PUB QUIZ
DRAG-SÚGUR DRAG LAB
MONTHLY EXPERIMENTAL DRAG SHOW
CAPTAIN SYRUP & GUESTS
DEVINE DEFILEMENT (EP RELEASE SHOW)
WITH: HEMÚLLINN, VOLCANOVA & ELLI GRILL
ZHRINE, KONTINUUM, MORPHOLITH