Into the Night

Chapter 16 of Search For a Dancer, a serial memoir about a week I spent in Iceland in 2022. Mondays on Flippism is the Key

I left the Nordic House and went back the way I came until I was at Fríkirkjan—the Free Church—where the folk group Systurs was singing an old Icelandic hymn. Every Airwaves has moments such as this: the old songs reborn, not in a retro way, but made new again by a new generation. No amount of hype or promotion can replace the purity and spirituality of this expression.

I went over to the Art Museum by the harbour, it is the biggest venue and usually fills up. I have seen some great shows here and I wanted to get sense of how lively the crowd was. There was a line, but it was moving. When I did get in I saw that the performer was Júniús Meyvant again! He was appearing with a full band. His mid-tempo musical meandering (and whistling!) caused me to think that Júniús needs a new drug, and definitely not lithium. After the previous acts I’d seen I really didn’t want him to ‘mellow my harsh’, so I left after a few songs walked the few blocks east to the Gamla Bíó.

This is the place where I attended my first concert in Iceland, fresh off the plane in 2004, a luncheon recital by members of the Icelandic Opera. They sang in Italian but thankfully they did project subtitles above the stage - in Icelandic! The Gamla Bíó is a stately building that was designed by prolific Icelandic architect Einar Erlendsson, it was remade as a cinema in 1939 and then used for the Opera from 1981 to 2011 until the Opera company moved to Harpa. The building was restored and modified in 2016 for modern concerts and events, removing the slanted floor and the antique seating. As a venue for concerts it is a mixed bag: great sight lines but mixed acoustics, the balcony is better than the main floor where IT CAN GET VERY LOUD (what?) if the sound person doesn’t keep an ear on their dBs. The last time I was here (2018) I was driven out by the excessive volume from an otherwise good band. It was a real shame, most of the other people at that show also left. Hoping for a better experience this time, I crossed my fingers and went in. I climbed the stairs to the balcony, snagging a front-row seat. The band was just finishing setting up and the projected name on the scrim above the stage said KAKTUS EINARSSON in all-caps.

I had read that Kaktus had been in the teen-age EDM band Captain Fufanu, a group that I had seen and was most impressed by in 2009. He is the son of Einar of The Sugarcubes fame and grew up playing in Einar’s Ghostdigital group. Kaktus was all grown up now, leading a real band that played real instruments (including two pianos!) playing real songs, with real arrangements! On one of the keyboards was an attractive young woman sporting a stylish hairdo; she had a habit of tilting her head as she played. I put on my telephoto lens and the view through it confirmed my suspicions: It was Ásthildur Ákadóttir, one half of Pascal Pinon, MY ALL TIME FAVORITE GIRL GROUP!

Ásthildur has always had an air of mystery about her, especially so in comparison to her more famous (and outgoing) sister Jófríður (JFDR.) When I first saw her in 2009 she was shy, painfully so, but she dutifully played keyboards and harmonized with her sister. As she grew older on stage she still played a deferential role to her sister, but behind the scenes she was advancing her musical education and by the time Pascal Pinon recorded their final album (Sundur) Ásthildur was the de facto producer  (In the video of Ást she matches her sister’s intensity with a stunning piano arrangement.) As Kaktus’s set of power pop progressed it became obvious that something special was happening between Ásthildur and the other piano player (whose name I couldn’t find) as they exchanged riffs between verses. They were playing. If there is one thing that most modern pop music lacks it is the sense of play, everything is so damn calculated, so serious, even in the most inane music. Ásthildur has come a long way since 2009 but still has the the head tilt:

Pascal Pinon, October 2009, Norræna Húsið


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