I’ve been listening to the “new’ Samaris CD. It was released last summer on the One Little Indian label. It contains their first two EPs—all eight original tracks with the addition of four remixes. They’ve recently given stunning performances at Iceland Airwaves, and have several festival dates lined up for the new year. The group´s material comes from 18th century Icelandic poetry set to a minimal electronica background (created by Þórður Kári Steinþórsson) with vocal melodies by Jófríður Ákadóttir and layered with clarinet themes by Áslaug Rún Magnúsdóttir. I’ve been hearing bits and pieces of this all year, although lo-fi video clips don't do this music justice. I caught them last year at the now demolished Faktorý—a crazy gig in a sweltering room full of yakkers:
Needless to say, I was eager to give this CD a listen in the privacy of my pine-paneled garret. Their music is wonderful. The concept—old poetry sung in Icelandic with a programmer and a clarinetist—sounds like a recipe for disaster. I found the result surprisingly fresh and unaffected. The songs are carefully structured, just the right length and had enough musical surprises to delight both the casual and serious listener. Jófríður has a tremendous sense of melody; it was the first thing I noticed about her in her other group Pascal Pinon (at the 2009 Iceland Airwaves.) The group has been getting a lot of attention; their version of Góða Tungl will be featured in the upcoming Icelandic feature film XL.
Now for the bad: The remixes. Really, really bad. This kind of audio graffiti was lame years ago and its tedious execution here left me with a bad taste for the whole album. I assume the remixes were done to give the group exposure to club music market. Samaris, unlike Pascal Pinon, is managed by “outsiders” and evidently the group has no control of their product, excepting the basic tracks. Even the cover art was misguided. This is one CD I’ll definitely re-burn without the remixes. The members of Samaris are all students and have a limit to how much effort they can expend on their career; what they have produced here is great. It is unfortunate that this collection was marred by lesser talents. The group has been performing some of these remixes live, so I’ll assume they approve.
Jófríður has tremendous potential, recent photos from the Airwaves show at Harpa show her gaining stage presence. She’s a talent to watch, I hope her career doesn’t get sidetracked by uninspired management.
Samaris in 3-D:
Cross eyes and focus on the center image for stereo effect!
As good a name for a genre. The translated title of the newest Samaris CD is Silkidrangar. Produced by Friðfinnur 'Oculus' Sigurðsson, this album continues music in the vein of their earlier self-titled release: a background of Þórdur Kári Steinþorsson's trippy electronica overlaid with Áuslaug Rún Magnúsdóttir’s clarinet and Jófriður Ákadóttir’s breathy vocalizations.
It’s pretty good. A few of the tracks are a bit “clubby” (noticeably the opening track Nótt) and the chord modulations are simple (lots of minor sevenths). This would be unremarkable trance electronica if wasn’t for the singing of Jófriður Ákadóttir. Is she The Most Dangerous Person in Icelandic Music Today? Or is she a New Icelandic Music Messiah, here to conquer the world with her inspired interpretations of 19th century Icelandic poetry? I wouldn’t put it past her. She's only twenty, and it looks as if she is capable of accomplishing anything she desires. I can see her being an absolute monster in ten years. Her work with Pascal Pinon has been discussed here before; this group takes an entirely different approach but the constant in both is Jófriður’s innate melodic sense. The standout tracks on the CD are Ég vildi og fegin verða and the wonderful Vögguljóð—performed with an expanded wind section in the studio version.
Do I recommend Silkidrangar? Yes, with reservations. Electronica has a not undeserved bad rep for being lazy and monotonous. This album doesn’t escape that trap completely but it does contain plenty of interesting material, enough to satisfy this cranky old curmudgeon. It is far better to catch them performing live in a small Reykjavík nightclub.
As if Jófríður Ákadóttir didn't have enough on her plate with the successful Pascal Pinon group, she is also the main singer of the moody electronica/clarinet trio Samaris. I rarely post music videos here, but this one is far more sophisticated than the usual, especially considering that the members of the group are all in their teens. It was directed by Þora Hilmarsdóttir who, judging by this effort, is a name to watch. The delicate lyrics are by the poet Steingrímur Þorsteinsson (1831-1913.) Even Google translate can't destroy the dreamy feel of the piece:
Góða tungl (Good moon)
Good moon, through the sky you pass
Sweetly by the clouds' silver bosom
As the Almighty's will bids
On your sure path.
Bring your light to all the tired
Sneak in through each window.
Let, in dusk, the suffering hearts
Be sweetly comforted by your beam
Good moon through the streets baptized
Walks to and expresses
It is set to the glory
God himself, your bright bang
Look for our low morphology
Let your peace faces
And as a friend in guard men
Answer by the Lord's love
Good moon beam in fog
Glitters you Astro Asael
And plankton lower latitudes fist quiet
Solemnly in the night air
Brings us, from the highest
Father gently kiss of grace,
And until the morning, golden splendid,
Good moon to lead us
Our frigid May (another 15 inches of snow in parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin yesterday) has been redeemed by a flurry of Iceland-related media. Of Monsters and Men, the double-platinum Icelandic rock group, will perform on SNL tonight. On May 19th, The Simpsons season finale will take place in Iceland—with Sigur Rós supplying the musical soundtrack!
On a less frivolous note, yesterday I received a DVD copy of Anti-American wins ’55 Nobel Prize, a documentary by Halldór Thorgeirsson. It is a fascinating look at the life of Halldór Laxness and the controversies which followed him throughout his career. Many thanks to Chay Lemoine, Laxness scholar and contributor to the Laxness in Translation website, for sending this my way. I'll be posting more about this Doc in the near future.
UPDATE: The electrons weren’t even dry on this post when I learned that Samaris, my favorite teen-age Techno/Goth combo, has been signed to One Little Indian (Björk’s label) with an album due out soon.
It's been too long a time since Pascal Pinon released a new CD. The Ákadóttir sisters have, for the most part, been living apart from each other for the last few years, Jófríður is the singer of the popular electronica trio Samaris, as well as working on her own music. Ásthildur has been studying composition in Europe.
Here's a review from Peek-a-boo Magazine, a Dutch music site, along with 53, a cut from the album. The UK-based eclectic magazine, has also reviewed Sundur, as well as featuring another cut, Orange. It will be released by Morr Music, August 16th.
While it is hard to get a sense of the whole thing from these two tracks, it is obvious that Pascal Pinon is not afraid of exploring new musical motifs. Their father, noted Icelandic musician Áki Ásgeirsson, has contributed percussion effects as well, making this a true family affair. There are more sisters at home—they've performed with Pascal Pinon in the past, when they were girls:
They've grown up now, whether they will follow in their older siblings footsteps or not remains to be seen, but I would certainly love to hear the music they would produce:
The final act of Iceland Airwaves 2023. Jófríður Ákadóttir, AKA JFDR, has been a musician of interest for me since first seeing her at Iceland Airwaves 2009 when she was 15 and playing with her sister Ásthildur in the quartet Pascal Pinon. They produced three full-length albums and Jófríður’s follow-up group, Samaris, also released three albums which were very successful. As a solo act she has released multiple albums and EPs and her collaborations with other artists are innumerable. Additional film and television scoring is also in her CV.
One of the knocks against JFDR’s singing style has been her constant use of a breathy soprano. Tonight she was experimenting with her delivery and even going into an open-throated delivery at times.
I found myself engulfed in a reflective mood as I watched her: so many performances, so much music, watching her develop as a musician for half her life.
Her musical growth may have plateaued lately, with songs of vague young adult angst rather than the insightful and focused coming-of-age narratives of her earlier work.
You can’t be a teen-ager forever.
Performing with her on various keys and programmers was her husband Joshua Wilkinson. Josh and Jó had been a definite item at this Airwaves as they were seen canoodling in dimly-lit back corners of off-venues. If there had been a cutest Airwaves couple award, they would have won it. A musical marriage creates its own problems, but tonight everything was all smiles, as evidenced with this lovely curtain call:
But the afterglow from the show evaporated in a flash.
As I was heading out through the outer lobby of Gamla Bíó I heard a loud metallic bang coming from the open doors, followed by shouts. Stepping out, I saw a car up on the sidewalk and a pedestrian lying by a snapped-off sign post. The anguished driver got out of her car, saying “It was my fault, it was my fault,” as she looked in horror at the immobile man. If I had been out the door 3 seconds earlier it would have been me on the ground.
Four troubled young teen-aged boys in a suburb of Reykjavík struggle to find themselves in this gripping drama. This is not an easy film to watch; the pointless violence of the teens is reflected in the wreckage of the broken lives of their parents. This movie won’t bring any tourists into Iceland, but much of it rings true to me, especially with the very limited experiences I’ve had with young males and single mothers in Reykjavík, and with my own experiences growing up in the 60s.
Set in the late 90s/early 00s (computers but no smart phones) the film plays out over the span of a couple of weeks, following the boys in turns as they bluster, smoke, drink and do drugs on their way through one self-generated crisis after another. There is a bit of supernatural nonsense thrown in but the narrative is generally straightforward and reaches a conclusion that I found satisfactory. The entire cast is excellent, especially the boys who will probably become the next generation of Icelandic film stars. Anita Briem appears as a mother of one of the youths and, in an horrific cameo, Ólafur Darri Olafsson makes an appearance (and manages to get naked as usual). I saw both Páll Óskar and Samaris listed in the musical credits.
A limited recommendation. It is thought-provoking but difficult to watch. The Icelandic title translates as "nightmare."
In reality, its just my way to disguise yet another post about Jófríður Ákadóttir, pearl of Iceland and the core of Pascal Pinon, shown here with her sister Ásthildur with a sample from their upcoming album:
Jófríður has been quite the globe-trekker of late, her Instagram feed has featured locales as diverse as Dublin, Berlin, L.A., Jamaica, Brooklyn, Seattle, and, lately, China. She is currently traveling without her sister, who is studying in Europe. Jó's musical partner for this stage of her sojurn is Kari Jahnsen, AKA Farao:
Jó is also working with Kristján Eldjárn of the group Sykur:
A new Samaris album, Black Lights, will be released on June 10th:
And she's been playing on her own:
No exact date on the new Pascal Pinon album, I'll be watching for it.
One group which received a lot of note in coverage of the recent Iceland Airwaves is Gangly.I like their music a lot. There is one video available which isn’t as raunchy as the title suggests:
Here's a mini-review of their Airwaves performance from the omnipotent Edward Hancox:
Gangly are a sneaky bunch, but now this electro producing trio have now been unmasked to be Sindri from Sing Fang, Jófríður from Samaris/Pascal Pinon and Úlfur from Oyama. How could they go wrong? Turns out, they can’t. This is clever, scintillating stuff. All three provide vocals, but with the draw here being Jófríður. Úlfur makes good use of a vocoder, whilst Sindri provides the samples. It’s gentle, but insistent. The highlight is a smooth ‘Someone Else’ (as I’ll call it here) which sounds just wonderful. I note members of other Icelandic bands in the audience, who nod appreciatively but must be slightly worried as this is a clear contender for act of the festival.
I'm unfamiliar with Úlfur but I've run into Sindri before. As to Jófríður, well, anyone who has followed this blog in the last six years knows what I think about her.
Chapter 14 of Search For a Dancer, a memoir of a week I spent in Iceland in 2022. Mondays on Flippism is the Key
I stare into nothing, I yearn for the innocence
I once thought I had
A lack of sense for a fear that grows as I grow older
I've carried these thoughts and I've drowned them in work
And I've worn myself blue on the way down
Oh, mother, would you cry if you hear this song?*
There were a couple of hours remaining before the first off-venue show of the day.
I was back in the apartment, thinking that I’d just lay down a bit to recoup from the chasing around I had already done earlier. I set my travel alarm (Braun BC02XW for those of you scoring at home) for 1600 hours just in case I happened to doze off. Which I promptly did. I woke to a knocking and the sound of a female voice saying “Room Service… ” I jumped up out bed and opened the bedroom door to find a vivacious young woman standing in the apartment “Oh, excuse me, I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said. “It’s fine!’ I replied, “I must have fallen asleep. I should have put out the do not disturb sign. I won’t need any towels, I shower at the pool, I’m good here.” She smiled at my TMI and said, “I’m sorry to have woken you, Is there anything else you might need?” “No, I’m here for the music festival, it runs late so I need all the sleep I can get in the day. I always stay at the Castle House when I come to Reykjavík.” She smiled again, thanked me, and closed the door. A different kind of sprakkar, another woman of Iceland eager to help me (although I think she was originally from Poland.)
It was only a short walk from my apartment to the Hildur Yeoman boutique, up the hill and around a couple of corners, down Ingólfsstræti and then a right, just past Prikið on Laugavegur. I’d be making this walk several times in the coming days. I was ten minutes early for the off-venue show by Jófríður Ákadóttir, AKA JFDR, a musical artist whose development I’ve followed for 13 years now. She has had some real success, first with her sister Ásthildur in the folk-tronica Pascal Pinon, then with the techno-poetic Samaris, as well as numerous collaborations and even compositions for television and film. Her musical journey has been a bildungsroman of sorts—her lyrics focus on her psychological and moral growth from childhood to adulthood. She has developed her solo career over the last five years even though it was interrupted by the Covid pandemic.
By the time she arrived the boutique was quite full. I had nestled in against a wall behind a rack of dresses to avoid being in the way (my usual M.O.) She was late, she explained that she had just come from the sound check for her evening show and had been delayed by the band before hers. When she finally got set up but she had forgotten her capo—in the dressing room down stairs. This meant another trip through the crowds. She wasn’t reticent about plunging into the teeming masses; when you are wearing a high-fashion skin-tight body suit you already have pretty much killed any remaining shyness you may have once possessed. She brushed against me going out and coming back, but it wasn’t the first time that we had made contact. In 2018 I was hiding (again) against the back wall of a Julia Nini Bang off-venue show at the Nordic House and she came in (late then too) and banged against me with her backpack full of gear. The crowd in Yeoman was much older than what I remembered from prior Airwaves, a trend I had noticed at the preview the previous night. What that means is hard for me to say, is it that the younglings aren’t interested in live music as much, or is it that they can’t afford it? Maybe they are too busy with TikTok to make the effort to see live music? On the other hand, I’ll be the first to admit that her ethereal art-songs of love and despair aren’t everyone’s idea of a good time.
You look for one thing and find another and everything in between
You think you’re smart but don’t know whether you’re thirty or seventeen
Your feet are shaking, your hands and hanging out and your head doesn’t understand
These last days you’ve lost the count of lines that you have crossed
When searching for a solid ground, but in this world you’re lost
You want to cry but there are no tears cause you know how silly it would be
The good and bad things are slowly beginning to make a little sense
From times to times the trouble comes then quickly fades away
Leaves your lungs in wounds and leaves both heaven and earth all gray
The world is going to be another way when you wake up another day*
The boutique made for a memorable venue, the management just pushed the clothes to the sides so I felt as if I was in Jófríður’s bedroom. She was, in her sylph-like attire, almost an apparition, her muse sent to beguile us with magical incantations. She was inspired—the crowd transfixed—by her songs of love and longing:
i carve too deep and i move too much
a gentle affection a struggling touch
i’d forgotten how sweet and sunny it was
there’s no wonder it hurt like a dagger at last
can i do it again*
Was she the dancer I was searching for? And where does JFDR’s music fit in today’s crass world of entertainment? I can’t say, I can’t even begin to imagine what makes for a successful career nowadays. But hers is the voice of the ancients; a siren and also a singer of lullabies, love songs for all the lost and aging children of the new millennium:
A line that meets another line
Arrows shooting endlessly
And the anchor in my rib cage
Reminding me of the gravity
I feel how I'm hopelessly
Warping all reality
Wishing things were different
Between you and me
I’m veiling thoughts in counterpoint
Alternately wavering
There’s miles between the water
And the moon, oh the moon
When my eyes meet with your eyes
Briefly leave the clouds behind
Oh, to feel your breath and mine
Constellating
Constellating
Constellating
Even when I get the things
I dared to dream and wanted
I can't defy the gravity
I can't defy the gravity*
It had gotten dark outside during her performance so in leaving the boutique I felt as if I were falling from paradise into the portals of the underworld. But I was not discouraged—there were to be more moments of import to me on the evening’s agenda, much more.
The sun is white tonight
Tomorrow it will be red and bright in ardent stillness
An ocean wave is welcoming
Yet it is carrying all of my sins and all my troubles
Hey hey where were they hiding
The seabirds that return in the summer tide?
Hey hey where were they hiding
All my loving, giving, receiving?*
Faktorý was the last incarnation of the bar/music venue Grand Rokk Outside of the signage, I don’t think there was much of a difference getween the two. During the day the downstairs was the province of chess players and bar flies. At night the place was lively with the patio in front of the venue filled with scene-sters:
Inside, it could become quite sauna-like and, with no coat check, it was easy to get over heated:
So many great shows, Vicky ripping it up in 2009:
It was always intimate and sometimes magical:
Soléy 2012
This venue was demolished, lost in the great Reykjavík hotel building boom of the last decade, but my memories of the performances I saw there still live on:
Vicky, 2009
And, finally, here is a moody video of Samaris, October 10, 2012:
The thing to remember about Pascal Pinon is not that they are so young, it is that they make great music. Jófriður's seemingly innate songwriting ability is what differentiates this group from other teen-age acts. Best wishes to them on their fall tour (rumor has it they will tour Japan next year!)
*Rough translation of video caption: Pool Guests have a pleasant surprise Visitors to Vesturbæjarlaugar received more for their money last Saturday when the band Pascal Pinon performed there on the pool deck; part of the Off-Venue agenda of the Iceland Airwaves festival. MonitorTV arrived and took the opinion of pool visitors to this non-traditional concert.
**Rough translation of Blue Bird site: Pascal Pinon is a project of the Icelandic twin sisters Jófríður and Ásthildur. Together with two friends, she decided at the age of 14 years, to revive her room with her enchanting music. For their first live show "The friendly concert" had to serve the twins' room. A short time later, they played numerous gigs in Reykjavik and played a debut album. They borrowed a house in the small town of Vogar and began recording with only one microphone. What emerged there are wonderful teenage stories - a potpourri of acoustic neo-folk and low-fi pop. On their first tour they also stop at the Blue Bird.
After three years of waiting for its release and then nine weeks more (it was held in quarantine by The Royal Mail!) my copy of this CD has finally arrived at Flippist World Headquarters. It is a fine effort and, unlike some of her recent work, the lyrics are intelligible (mostly).
Jófríður Ákadóttir has been one of my favorite Icelandic singer/songwriters for over ten years. With a body of work that belies her young age of 25, she has released three full-length albums with Pascal Pinon, four with Samaris, as well as numerous one-off collaborations with a wide variety of artists from all over the world. Her breathy soprano is an acquired taste, as is her unique phrasing, dropped words, singing against the beat and moody chord changes. In this album she fearlessly plays around with the building blocks of production: compression, gating, echoes and other standard studio tools. This album definitely has most distinctive audio footprint. The lyrics, as is her wont, are concerned with exploring her maturity in relationships and dealing with personal growth. Some of the strongest tracks (My Work, Gravity, Dive In) have been released before in different forms but are a perfect fit here; the New Dreams version of My Work is stunning. Most of the tracks do have a some ‘frosting’ on them—(there are over twenty musicians and production assistants listed on the jacket!) but some are quite spare—whatever works, I guess.
All in all, it was worth the wait. New Dreams is another step forward for this musical pioneer.
UPDATE: New Dreams has won the Reykjavík Grapevine “Best Album of 2020” award!
