iceland 07

So, yeah, I went to Iceland.

I was flown out for the Iceland Airwaves music festival, a week-long celebration of Icelandic music held every October in Reykjavik. Seven other journalists and I were put up in a gorgeous hotel, had all of our meals paid for and basically got to enjoy the best week of our lives in exchange for writing nightly reviews of each of the festival’s showcases.

I’d never been to Iceland before, so a quick review of the city before I get started on the music: if you get the chance, go. Seriously. It’s gorgeous, full of life and character and some of the warmest and most open-hearted (not to mention awesomely intoxicated) people you will ever meet. The walk from my hotel to the offices of the alt-weekly for which I was writing was something I looked forward to daily; I loved watching the barren highway become the shops and clubs and cafes that made up Reykjavik’s main drag. I won’t bore you with the details of what I did except to say that I rarely went to bed before 6 a.m., and that the Reykjavik bar scene might be the craziest/most exhilarating in the world, hands-down. Also, if you’re there, try the hot dogs. Trust me.

What I really want to talk about is the music, because I’m convinced Airwaves is one of the last music festivals totally uncorrupted by the machinery of the music industry. Every night I got to watch bands perform not for the blogerati or the label reps, but for the sheer love of playing. It was incredible — a kind of pure, undiluted music scene, one that radiated enthusiasm. There were no publicists (that I could see) and no industry flaks, no one noticing my press pass and trying to convince me about whatever bands they happened to be managing. It was just the musicians, their songs, and their fans. This is going to sound goofy, but it’s true: it was genuinely beautiful. I didn’t want it to end.

Though American bands like Of Montreal and !!! and Heavy Trash were on the bill, I went out of my way to avoid them. What good was being in Iceland if I was going to see the same bands I could see in New York? I’m glad I did — I got to hear some truly inspiring music. Here are the highlights:

<3 Svanhvit!
The best band I saw all week, by far. Eleven people cram on stage and never stop moving. Jumping, colliding, laughing, falling over, hollering into microphones, banging on pots and pans. It was pure mania: the songs have all the jubilence of, say, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, but they’re falling apart at the seams. Everything’s out of time, the vocals are sloppy and shouted, and interrupted by long bouts of skronking saxophone. In other words, it was perfect. I was assigned to see them my first night in Iceland, and re-arranged my schedule to see their second show later in the week. At that one they were playing at a bar too small to contain them, so they did the next logical thing: they set their guitarist’s amp inside, and had him stand out on the sidewalk and play in front of the plate glass window, facing in. Every time the band broke out into full manic dancing-around mode, he’d pound on the window and break into a two-step of his own on the street. Anecdote totally indicative of the Airwaves mindset: At the end of their second set I asked if they had any shirts, which I was told would cost me 1500 krona (about $24 US). I started gushing about them, telling them how much I loved them and how I’d written a rave review about them for the paper. The vocalist smiled and nodded and then said, “So, yeah, the shirt is 1500 krona.” It made me love them even more. You can’t quite get the energy of their live set from the samples on their myspace page, but check out “Sextanda Sonata” for just a hint of their beautiful madness.

Sprengjuhollin
I didn’t get to see this band, but it felt like I did. Their song “Worry ’til Spring” was inescapable, a beautiful heartbroken little song about an unrequited crush that seemed to follow me wherever I went. I cannot recommend this song highly enough — as in, stop whatever you’re doing and listen to it now. The band’s full length CD is in Icelandic, but I’m convinced if they recorded an English-language version they could be huge here.

Changer
Changer is a death metal band, which made them a-ok by me. They came near the end of a night of (it must be said) fairly uninspired hard rock and threatened to detonate the stage. Within 5 minutes they’d cleared the room, but I couldn’t leave: their power was awesome and terrifying and unrelenting, and their singer seemed to be on a mission to obliterate his vocal chords. I’d suggest “Bloodstained Sleeves,” which gives you an idea of where it’s going before it’s even a few seconds old. Imagine hearing this at about 7 million times the volume.

Strigakor nr. 42
There’s a bit of lore behind this group: they formed in 1989, released a celebrated death metal record in 1994, got a massive following in Iceland and broke up right after. Their airwaves show was their first in 10 years, and everyone (including me) was braced for a full metal assault. So you can imagine my shock (and incredible pleasure) when they launched into a song that sounded more like Ikara Colt than Immortal. They played a full-set fuck-you of all new material that sounded like industrial-grade Wire. There’s a full-length coming later this year that I’m already desperate to get. Either of the two demos on their MySpace page give you an idea of the insane precision at work. Their music sounds like bullets.

In the interest of not making an eternal post, I’ll finish up with a few more picks tomorrow.