emusic selects: Sprengjuhöllin, Blackblack

Today, we’re thrilled to bring you two brand new eMusic Selects artists: from Iceland, marauding pop group Sprengjuhöllin and L.A.’s ramshackle, endearing, mysterious Blackblack.

The first of these bands is closest to my heart. I first heard Sprengjuhöllin during the Iceland trip I can’t shut up about. I didn’t even get to see them live — my primary exposure to them was via their gorgeous, heartbreaking song “Worry ’til Spring,” which became kind of a theme song for the group of writers I was working with. It’s lovely and yearning, the kind of mournful desperate unrequited love song that captures everything all at once. That track is free on eMusic today and, if nothing else, you owe it to yourself to hear this song (and flamgirlant, if you’re reading, that goes double for you). The rest of the record is just as good, and Yancey summed it up perfectly:

Sprengjuhöllin vacillate between fuzzy rock and stark balladry — and they handle both with confident ease. “Keyrum Yfir Ísland” is the big rock number (phasers phasing, strummers strumming, geese a’laying); “Taktlaus” is the shiny, Jam-like punk tune; “Flogin Er Finka” is moving, piano-based Coldplay moroseness; and “Nú Er Tíminn” could have easily appeared on an early album from the Kinks or the Action — good, head-shaking ’60s rock. And then there’s “Sumar í Múla,” in which the band consciously plays through the history of pop music from the ’60s to today, incorporating Motown, disco, synth pop, Brit pop and much more into an awesomely goofy, awesomely awesome tune.

Because all of Sprengjuhöllin’s songs are in Icelandic, I gave them a call and asked them to provide interpretations — the stories behind the songs are kinda mind-blowing, especially “The Blond Boy’s Last Blog Entry.” You can read about them here.

Blackblack are just as endearing — they capture the long-gone spirit of amateurism that once defined indie rock. Their songs are like big balls of light, buoyant and warm. Comprised chiefly of two sisters — Diva and Lola Dompe — with occasional assistance from Phantom Planet’s Alex Greenwald, Blackblack exude charm and childlike enthusiasm (fun bit of trivia: Diva and Lola are the daughters of Bauhaus drummer Kevin Haskins). In my review, I wrote:

It’s the revival of a lost aesthetic, the same kind of ragged charm favored by old-time indie heartthrobs like BMX Bandits and Talulah Gosh and Marine Girls, the order of the day before someone showed up with the soap and water and singing lessons and turned the whole enterprise into a crash course in good manners. “The Most! The Best! The Greatest!” is impish and hyperactive, Diva and Lola belting out the chorus — “The most! The Best! The Greatest! Foreverrrr! Foreeehhveehhrrrr!” — over and over as guitars collide behind them. They veer beautifully off-pitch again and again — which is precisely what the song demands.

Alex caught up with Diva by phone last week, and you can read excerpts from that conversation here. Diva apparently just started a catering company called Crops & Rawbers, the name of which makes the pun-lover in me go bananas.

So there they are! We hope you enjoy the two new additions to the eMusic Selects family.