I ♥ Icelandic Music

þriðjudagur, júlí 21, 2009

Sólstafir Video "Love is the devil (And I am in love)"

A nice video for the Sólstafir song "Love is the devil (And I am in love)" , directed & written by the drummer of the band, shot & edited by SIRGussi.
www.youtube.com/v/AaKpvzvmNOI&hl&fmt=18

Sólstafir @ MySpace

Interview with Ólöf Arnalds by Free Williamsburg

I found a review of a show as well as a short Free Williamsburg interview with Ólöf Arnalds, with even a reference to Finnish music scene:

Last night, I was fortunate to check out the Ólöf Arnalds show at the Scandinavia house. I say fortunate because I had never had a chance to see the Icelandic songstress live and it was by far one of my favorite shows this year. The setting was intimate, and she used it to her advantage--engaging the audience many times by having us join in the chorus. She is definitely one to check out if you have a chance. While Arnalds has played four times this week, I am sure she will be coming back soon. Before the show, I was able to have Arnalds answer a few questions--from her place in music history as an Icelandic singer to her role as a musician during a tough economic climate.
FW: Can you give us a little background on your history as a musician? How long have you been solo?
OA: I had musical upbringing from 6 years old, learning violin, changing to singing lessons at 16, I quit music school at 21 and moved to Berlin, where I stayed for one winter and hung out with the Mum kids a lot, shortly after I moved home I started my studies in composition and new media at the Icelandic Academy of the Arts, taking a one year break from my studies to tour with Mum. I graduated from the school in 2006 and while working with Skuli Sverrisson on his record "Seria" from 2006 I started making my own music and lyrics for my first album that came out in 2007.
FW: Do you think there is more freedom in the approach to the music when you are a solo artists? Which do you prefer more--the band environment or being a solo artist?
OA: I like doing both. What I like about playing solo is that you stand and fall entirely alone with your performance. But the musicians I collaborate with always teach me a lot and it's also nice to be able to share the experience of touring and playing.
FW: The music you play is light and airy like Vashti Bunyan as much as it also references contemporaries like Lau Nau and Kria Brekkan. What are your influences? Who do you feel are your musical colleagues?
OA: I find it impossible to pinpoint my strongest influence, I work from impulse, not from predecided ideas about sound of feel, so any influence I'm under is very indirect in my mind.
FW: The Nordic region has been churning out great music over the last few decades. Do you think their are regional similarities in different parts? What do you feel the vibe is in Iceland compared to other countries? Do you feel at all akin to the Finnish Freak Folk scene?
OA: Well, Icelanders and Finns have some special connection, especially in regards of their drinking habits! The good thing about the Icelandic scene is that it's very fluent in a way, things happen quickly and easily, everything is very spontanious, which is something that the Finns are not.
FW: You are playing a show with Björk on the 8th. What are your thoughts on her place in music history in terms of being an Icelandic musician? Do you feel that you "stand in her shadow" by being a female musician from Iceland?
OA: Not at all, I don't feel like my identity is that much about being icelandic. I just see myself as a artist trying to do my best in sharing my music with others. Björk is a fabioulus artist and I really look up to her, because she does things the way she wants to do them. That's very inspiring for me.
FW: What bands are currently exciting you? In Iceland and from other areas?
OA: I really like this young band from Iceland called Retro Stefson.
FW: Finally, while this is a little political, how do you think the economic crisis in Iceland affects you as a musician? Do you think it makes you want to move your music into being political?
OA: I'm not interested in putting my energy to much into politics. It's not my job. The way the economic crisis is affecting me at the moment is that I feel a strong urge not to be smothered by it. I think it's very important under these circumstances that artist keep their mind clear and creative, to keep up the good spirit.
Ólöf Arnalds @ MySpace
Old Video of Ólöf by Stuart Rogers (Iceairpodcast, now Gogoyoko)
"Klara"
www.youtube.com/v/D7IT_m_ImzY&hl&fmt=18

Source:
http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/archives/2009/05/olof_arnalds.html

mánudagur, júlí 20, 2009

Innipúkinn Music Festival: 30. July-2. August 2009

Tuborg present
INNIPÚKINN 2009
8. Edition

Verslunarmannahelgina @ Reykjavík
31. July - 2. August
Start 31. July @ 20:00
End 2. August @ 3:00

Places: Sódóma (previous Gaukurinn venue) & Batterý (Previous Organ venue) & Harbour area
Tickets @ Midi or Skífan Shop.
Price: 2900 IKR for 3 days

Bands playing:
Agent Fresco
Benni Hemm Hemm
Borko
Bróðir Svartúlfs
Dikta
Fallegir menn
FM Belfast
Gylfi Ægisson og Jóhanna Finnborg (GÆJÓ)
K-Trio
Mammút
Me the Slumbering Napoleon
Morðingjarnir
Ólöf Arnalds
Retrön
Seabear
Singapore Sling
Sudden Weather Change
Sykur
& more TBA

Interview with Björk in Grapevine Magazine (July 2009)

Just back home from a City Trip to Helsinki, the capital of Suomi Finland.
Tonight I found a brand new interview with Björk in the latest Reykjavik Grapevine issue by Haukur.
Read it yourself @ A Conversation With Björk

About her next record, and past records:
G: Is this something you will employ on your next album?
B: Can you smell it? Yes, I am excited about this. It’s more complicated than pouring water around, of course, but all these programs are very exciting and bring with them the promise of a thousands unexplored possibilities.
G: What are you thinking in terms of the next record? Not so much in how it sounds, but in terms of themes, underlying concepts, emotional spectrum and ideas. I’ve experienced each of your records as examining certain concepts or thoughts, Volta being all screaming physical revolt, then you had Vespertine with its frail undertones of courtship and introspection...
B: Well, Vespertine was... I made it around the time I bought my first laptop. It was very exciting. Everyone was so depressed, talking about ‘THE END OF MUSIC’ and ‘music is doomed, what with all the downloading’ and I was just... ‘No, it’s not. You just need some imagination.’ It was partly inspired by that. There was a collection of instruments on the record that all sound very good when they’re downloaded – like the harp, glockenspiel and celesta – and all the voices were whispered instead of sung at full blast.
The soundscape was kind of virtual, more thought than physical. More mental and frozen. I decided: ‘OK, this world is not warm summer, it is a frozen winter. It’s cold, you turn off your body.’ In Vespertine, I made a record that you experience in a frozen state, from the cover artwork to the soundscape and all lyrics being about being in a pupal stage on a winter’s night. Hibernating. I was playing with that idea. It’s funny to think that in the year 2000, when I was making that record, people were acting very scared about the purported ‘end of music’. It’s always that same cliché. I liked turning it upside down.
And now of course, almost ten years later, there’s a whole lot of music out there being made that’s directly influenced by what downloads well. Music being made by people that have been for the last decade listening to mp3 files at their house, and now they’re making music out of them. There’s no real focus now on listening to Dolby Stereo at your house. The bitrate can be shitty for that matter, there’s no right way to listen to music. Anyway, I thought that work with Vespertine was equally exciting and challenging. And then Volta was a very different affair...
Up on the hill with a flag and a horn
G: So what are you thinking or contemplating right now that might be reflected on Volta’s follow-up?
B: My friend Gabríela [Friðriksdóttir, artist] is big on numerology. In the time leading up to Volta, she’d calculated that I was an eight, which means justice. I thought that was funny, especially since my dad is always working in the union movement and my mom has that gene in her... she went on hunger strike for eighteen days to try and stop the Kárahnjúkar dam from happening. So I thought it would be funny and humorous – although maybe no one but me gets the joke – to do a justice album, an EIGHT; up on the hill with a flag and a horn.
For the next record, if I can promise you anything about that, it’s that it will not be a justice record. It’s fun to run up the hill with a big flag, demanding justice, but it can be a tiring feeling in the long run. Trying to think you can tell others what’s right and what they need to do. It was fun for two years but now I am done with that. I liked it, though, the raw energy with the brass girls and the hooliganism. But now I have something different. I will say that I am excited about all the new programs and instruments we’ve been talking about.