Busy week back in "the real world" for the past 7 post-Airwaves days, but back in Iceland someone (and I REALLY can't remember who) set me a little task. A week after the festival I had to write a short post saying what songs were still swimming around my head, which songs and moments really stuck in the memory for 2009's festival, so I've got ten...
- Oh Land - Frostbite
- Reykjavík! - Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
- Sudden Weather Change - St. Peter's Day
- Dikta - Just Getting Started
- Ghostigital - Trouser
- Feldberg - Don't Be A Stranger
- Mammút - Rauðilækur
- Hafdis Huld - Kongulo
- Ólafur Arnalds - Ljósið
- FM Belfast - Killing In The Name Of
Great tracks, I feel an ipod playlist coming on.
I've found just a couple of reviews of Iceland Airwaves 2009 around the internet, but I haven't looked hard (yet). For now, there have been short reviews at Drowned In Sound and (hilariously) in The Daily Telegraph. Judge for yourself.
As ever, The Reykjavik Grapevine is THE place to go to for everything Airwaves related, and download that free album if you haven't already. And they're such nice people too, so I hope they won't mind me reproducing an extract of their review (by an American visitor) of one of Reykjavík!'s shows.
This was Reykjavík! In college, a writing professor taught me to never
use an exclamation point unless I really, really meant it. Reykjavik!
really, really mean it. While they set up and turned up every mic till
it went into the red, there was much shouting and laughing. Someone
shrieked “Too much foreplay!” which further confirmed the inkling I had
that we were all about to get fucked. Hard.
Minutes later,
their singer was jumping off the railing with a thud, taking a
circuitous path through the crowd to end up next to the pudgy, drunk
and happy guitarist Haukur, who was borrowing a guitar from the
previous band Mammút. The vocalist moved on to test the fan for its
ability to carry his weight. If I were in Mammút I would never lend a
guitar to Reykjavik! They are as abusive as they are loud, as reckless
as their witless audience, as damaging as a wildebeest stampede, and no
thing or person could escape from their wrath last night.
They
treated the stage as a guideline, a home base to return to after seeing
how far the mic cables could stretch into their bombed and wobbling
crowd. Sure, I was able to identify a few key riffs within the thick
mess of sound, but their strength is certainly not in their mastery of
melody. Three guys created a flurry of tightly locked drum, guitar and
bass jabs which gave guitarist Haukur and singer Bóas the freedom to
throw out the rules of tonal harmony and do what any man might do with
a stomach full of beer and a soul of black calcified rock: scream. They
know the PA will distort and disguise the fact that they don't sing
actual notes. Reykjavik! is like the friend at a party that gets you
funneling beers when you'd intended to merely have a few. Being in the
room with them meant you had to headbang or get the fuck out. I did the
former until even the venue had had enough; Reykjavik!, a band as
vehemently dedicated to the party as the city they're named after, had
to move on and get the fuck out.
He captures the feel of one of those shows perfectly, DAMN why are some people so much better with words than me? Full original text is here.
Leave other reviews in the comments below if you can, leave your own top tens (especially if you set me the challenge!). Ta ta for now x

