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happy new year.

i promise these entries will be updated v soon! :)

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cant // blood orange

cant is a band i didn't know much about before going to see, apart from it's chris taylor from grizzly bear's new project. and also i'd only seen the support act blood orange's dev hynes in one of his previous guises also (lightspeed champion) and i also knew nothing of his new stuff. this ended more like a double-headliner show and i loved both bands pretty much in equal proportions. dev was a surprise, in that he started on stage but then meandered into the audience, never seemingly stand in one place for long, happier it seems with his back to everyone.












more shots from the gig here. and a review (in dutch, so not by me! ;) here.

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i like trains + stalking horse in amsterdam

soon after getting back to amsterdam, it was fun to welcome my good friends i like trains back to the netherlands (at the end of october). these guys are my most frequent visitors from leeds and this would be my third time seeing them playing over here since i moved (the first gig being only a few days after i got here).

still having airwaves and reykjavik pretty much engrained in my bones (it has that effect on you), i started to think whilst watching 'the trains' that they have to play iceland airwaves. it simply must happen one day. in 2012 would be amazing. here's hoping! and for now, here's a few shots from the gig (more here). there is also one photo of a new band, also from leeds - stalking horse - who i'd never seen before (in this guise - i know all the guys in the band from their other bands' guises, if that makes sense...) and i can't wait till i get to see them again on these shores (or elsewhere, maybe also in reykjavik!) .

 









more shots of stalking horse here

airwaves: highlights

so, here are some of my favourite acts from iceland airwaves. in the end, i opted to use video-accompaniment with this blog entry, mainly with visuals of some of the country's amazing landscape. one person not featured in this summary, who i would have included if i could find a video, is guðrið hansdóttir from the faroe islands (so instead, why not check out some great shots of her by dennis stempher, a fellow music photographer who had also made the journey to iceland from the netherlands, from the first day of the festival here).

sin fang

since getting back from reykjavik, i'd say sin fang's album summer echoes has been the one i've played most. i first saw sindri már sigfússon perform in leeds a few years back with his other band seabear and to be honest i wasn't quite grabbed by the show - not sure why, maybe it was my mood? or the fact that sindri *really* didn't look like he was having a good time. i saw him perform a couple of times at airwaves and i now think i get it. that's just the way it is. i really enjoyed his shows this time, particularly the one at hressa when i was down the front snapping. am already looking forward to when sin fang heads to amsterdam for his next gig, which this time is not allowed to clash with any other gig that night (last time he played, beirut was also in town that night)!

Sin Fang - Because Of The Blood from Máni M. Sigfússon on Vimeo.

snorri helgason

next up, snorri helgason whom i discovered  unexpectedly in one of the most quirky off-venue venues (a men's clothes shop). i'd actually turned up to see borko who i thought would be playing on the store's tiny little stage surrounded by paraphenalia such as a reindeer (?) head, a shoe-shining machine, an old record player (which was used to play the between-sets background music, a nice touch that was noticed by this vinyl loving gal!) and a picture of john f. kennedy (which made me wonder, do icelanders have a similar obsession leftover from the '60s that the irish do - in many family homes in the west of ireland, a photo of jfk still sits on the mantlepiece; this link is not the only thing that both countries have in common, as the icelandic scenery is not so unlike that of county mayo, albeit with added extras such as larva and volcanoes). anyway, so snorri's album winter sun has also been played a lot recently on my stereo (aka computer) and i particularly love this video (another one from the studio of máni m. sigfússon).



Snorri Helgason - River from Snorri Helgason on Vimeo.

patrick watson

ok, so this one is cheating a bit as really i only wanted to get the video in this round-up. sadly i didn't get to see patrick playing any (rumoured or real?) sets at airwaves but i did see him playing with esmerine (a band which is made up of members of both godspeed you! black emperor and thee silver mt. zion) at harpa on the saturday night and i was wowed by (i) the most amazing instrument set-up (cello, marimba, a zylopone or two and a harp) and (ii) the song the canadian musicians played for their friend, the late lhasa de sela. 

Patrick Watson - Fireweed from Patrick Watson on Youtube.

olafur arnalds

and last, but not least, olafur arnalds. he was the reason for my being at airwaves this year at all, after i saw him play an inspirational and intimate show at a festival in nijmegen a few months back (to 50 people in a 500-year-old house, see blog post here and one or two more photos here). at airwaves, i was lucky enough to catch his off-off-venue solo piano show at the city hall and could hear just some snippets of the start of his nordic house show, but it was not till his saturday night performance at harpa that i got to witness the full effect of his piano, orchestral and electronic arrangements and all i can say is, wow! (the show did seem crazily short, but at least it did leave me wanting more!) i can't wait till he next tours this way (maybe be as part of the holland festival? now that would be rather something). oh, and i couldn't find a video of olafur's music with any scenic shots, but this one does have a view out of the window of his reykjavik apartment. i think that counts. :)

Olafur Arnalds - Near Light (one of the Living Room Songs) 
from Ólafur Arnalds on Youtube.

for a really good summary of a number of the bands mentioned on this post, go see chromewaves' thoughts on airwaves here. i really love the way he summarises olafur's show at harpa in particular ('...in every gentle piano note, every wavering bowed string, every stuttering electronic beat – even in the projected animated bird mobiles and flickering strobe lights'...).

iceland airwaves 2011

for one week in october, i lived a dream. ok, maybe that's a bit extreme - but i have wanted to go to iceland airwaves for years and, to be honest, i couldn't believe that finally i was there! for one week, i lived in reykjavik at kex hostel and i immersed myself in all things icelandic. and it has to be said, it has had an effect on me. it seems that i was totally spellbound and, just like pretty much like everyone else who had just had their first trip to the city/country, i definitely hope to be back.

and i really do think it is true - airwaves may just be the best festival i've been to, ever! so much amazingly great music around every corner, in pretty much every nook and cranny. the off-venue gigs are almost worth being in reykjavik for even without an airwaves ticket. our hostel was one of those off-venues and it had gigs all afternoon which - for the first three days - were simultaneously being broadcast via kexp.org radio in seattle (a great station which i've been listening to since getting back, and you can check out their airwaves shows on their blog). pictured below is johan johansson playing at kex on day #2:

 

other off-venues included: a fair few other hostels; a tent behind the back of a restaurant (hressa) - particularly enjoyable there was the morr music afternoon showcase with borko, soley and sin fang (who by the way had the most impressive homemade guitar pedals made out of tin cans!); a rather classy menswear shop (kormakur og skjoldur) beneath a supermarket where i was most pleased to catch snorri helgason and saw a fun set by retro stefson; and even a jewellery shop for a proper diy show by porquesi, with only the band in the shop and everyone watching on the street in the rain (not that i really noticed the rain).

all of these bands are icelandic and none of them i'd seen before in their current guises - but many of i would see again over the course of the festival, if not the bands themselves then members of these bands in other bands! a special mention here goes to maggi magnús magnusson, who i saw playing  four times in the course of one day with borko, sin fang and mr silla - although actually he'd played six times that day - and over the course of the entire festival, he'd have played 16 times! (or maybe that count even got higher in the end??)... he can be spied in the gallery below playing at the end day #2.

so yes, a lot of the band members seem to swop around. and everyone in reykjavik seems to be in a band (or maybe it just feels like that around airwaves time). and by far the best quote i overheard was from a festival goer chatting to a girl of around 10 years old outside reykjavik backpackers hostel after sing for me sandra had just finished: "so... are you in a band yet?"!

after the end of my first day, i'd seen pretty much 90% icelandic bands, although by the end i had get to see a fair few non-icelandic bands too and there were plenty more i didn't get to see. out of the official venues, i got to most of the big ones (including harpa, the art museum and nasa, where orphicoxtra - pictured above - was snapped), and actually i think my favourite might have been iðnó, maybe because for at least three of the nights we ended hanging out in the upstairs bar, and on one of the nights pretty much all the bands i'd seen that day were in the same room - with members from sin fang, soley and kira kira plus dustin o'halloran and haushka - even one member of sigur ros too. rock and roll tastic. and everyone was happily hanging out with each other and they weren't getting bothered by fans ('cept for one person, i.e. me, who couldn't help chatting to the aforementioned drummer!).

anyway, i think that is quite enough babbling and now here are some photos of the bands i saw (full list is given at the bottom of this post, although i didn't take photos of all these, not least cos my camera gave up the ghost after three days... who forgot to pack her battery re-charger? hmm.)

so that's me (on the left in harpa) signing off for now. maybe i'll be back with a second round of mumblings and meanderings soon. for now, i'll just say to click on this link for my full iceland airwaves set with a random selection of photos and click on the links below (to be added soon) for the individual sets.


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// a to z (actually b to u) of band shots:

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// icelandic bands seen:
agent fresco
berndsen
borko
for a minor reflection
helgi jonsson
johann johannsson
kippi kaninus
kira kira
lara runars
lockerbie
mammutmr silla
of monsters and men
olafur arnalds (x2)
orphicoxtra
porquesi (x3)
retro stefson
samarissin fang (x2)
sing for me sandra
snorri helgason
soley
sudden weather change
who knew utidur

// non-icelandic bands seen:
de staat
dustin o'halloran
esmerine
gudrid hansdottir
haushka
jenny hval
mazes
other lives
owen pallett
oy
puzzle muteson
sykur
ter haar
team me
treefight for sunlight

and loads more i didn't get to see. maybe next year?!

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