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Singapore Sling
The Curse of Singapore Sling
How The Jesus & Mary Chain might have sounded had they grown up gutting fish instead of hanging around bus shelters in East Kilbride. Named not after a seventies cocktail, but after a Greek film that lead singer Henrik Björnsson thought ‘very disturbing and perverse and shot in black and white’. He might well have been reviewing his band’s debut album. Callum and I saw them live at Sirkus last summer and they rocked. |
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The Sugarcubes
Life's Too Good
The album that introduced the world to Björk Gudmundsdóttir. A lively confection of infectious pop and off beat lyrics (‘spiders in my pocket’ … hmm, I think someone’s been at the Brennivinn). This album and its lead single ‘Birthday’ arguably saved Independent music in the late eighties, a decade when Kylie regularly occupied top spot in the Chart Show’s Indie Top Ten. ‘So delicious!’ |
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Sigur Rós
Ágætis Byrjun
Probably the one album, more than any other, that lulls reviewers into making purple proclamations along the lines of ‘the sound of God weeping golden tears in heaven.’ Sigur Rós do the quiet-loud-quiet thing better than anyone and the result is so compelling and gorgeous that you can almost forgive them for singing in their own made-up language of ‘Hopelandic’. Perhaps their record company should spot a trick and pay them in their own made-up currency of, I dunno, ‘Biscuits’? |
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Múm
Summer Make Good
Every bit as fragile and bittersweet as it’s predecessors ‘Yesterday was dramatic, Today is okay’ and ‘Finally we are no one’, Múm’s third album was recorded in a remote Icelandic lighthouse. So it’s no surprise that it’s principal themes concern ghost ships, night boats, weeping rocks and island children (the ‘little girls from Austurbæjarskóli’ even sing on track two … though vocalist Kristín Anna Valtysdóttir does not sound like she is much older than Birna’s daughter, Ásta). |
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Emiliana Torrini
Love in the Time of Science
I borrowed this CD off Callum (it hasn’t been out of his Toyota’s stereo since young Ásta left it there on that awful day she was abducted). Emiliana’s voice is Björk without the serrated edges and is never more gorgeous than on the single ‘Easy’ (check out the acoustic version on the CD single). Since recording this album, Emiliana has penned a No.1 hit for Kylie - ‘Slow’ - and contributed ‘Gollum’s Song’ to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack (I still think they should have set that film in Iceland, with Fire & Ice Locations producing!) I love you Emiliana and if you ever fancy a date with a tall ex-fisherman who’s allergic to shrimp, give me a call (your new album ‘Fisherman’s Woman’ suggests that you might not be averse to the idea). |
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Mew
Frengers
OK, so Mew are Danish not Icelandic, and though we have won our independence from Denmark, I still have a problem with anything of Danish origin (even as a child I wouldn’t touch Lego). This album is the exception and surely the finest release of 2003. From the sublime slow burn of ‘Comforting Sounds’, to the awesome glacial thrum of ‘Snow Brigade’ via the lolita lullaby that is ‘Her Voice is Beyond her Years’, Mew deliver thrilling, obtuse pop reminiscent of Pale Saints, Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine. |
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Ske
Life, Death, Happiness and Stuff
Ske (which means ‘happening’ in my native tongue but ‘slut’ in Japanese) are a seven-piece ‘pop-art’ band from Reykjavík who have written ad jingles and theatre scores and have now produced an album composed of English, French and Japanese tracks. Unsurprisingly the sound is eclectic. You could even say that the eccentric Icelandic pop wheel had come back full circle to The Sugarcubes’ debut ‘Life’s To Good’ …if it didn’t sound so pretentious. For there’s little pretence on this mesmerising, happy, occasionally folksy record. Think Air’s ballads, Stereolab’s ‘country’ moments, and Blur’s Japanese flirtation on ‘Yuko and Hiro’. |
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Frikki's Compilation CD
The Killer Sounds of Iceland
Weeping Rock, Rock - Múm
Staralfur - Sigur Rós
Jóga - Björk
Easy (acoustic) - Emiliana Torrini
Delicious Demon - The Sugarcubes
Sweet Surrender - Bellatrix
No Soul Man - Singapore Sling
I Want You – Mugison
Enter Spacebar – Trabant
Julietta 2 - Ske
Catch – The Leaves
Ti Ki – Sigur Rós
This is the CD I played to Callum, Rudi and Anna Björk on our drive to Skógafoss to recce the waterfall for the Renault commercial. I even made my own cover showing my friend Daddi - drummer with The 101 Dalmatians - swallowing the snout of the Skaftafellsjökull glacier. This is Daddi’s idea of humour.
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