Icelandic new year flavor

A few months ago one of the members of my choir announced that she had a plan to make a disc of musical favorites related to New Year celebrations, and she wanted us to be part of the effort. The director whipped up a new arrangement of one of the Icelandic classics, and during our annual weekend retreat rehearsal, we performed it along with several other favorites to an attentive recording crew.

She was recently interviewed on the national radio program, and it included a snippet of the best one as the intro. This song's tune and lyrics make me think of Vikings stamping around a bonfire in the deepest dark of an Icelandic winter night, and even though this is only a clip, I hope you can feel it too.

The rest of the program is an interview with my choir member for anyone who wants to exercise their listening skills, and it closes out with another recording of another New Year favorite, as performed by a very enthusiastic choir comprised of several generations of Icelanders. I can't wait to get the CD and hear the rest of our contributions, and hear what else is included.

downtown love

I'm in my third month of being a downtown girl again, and after this last weekend, I think I'm a fan. My brother was in town for the weekend, one of the best in the whole Reykjavík activity calendar. First on the program, the Reykjavík marathon, a great race that offers distances for all types of runners- 3k for the kids and purely recreational folks, 10k and half marathon for the more ambitious, and the full marathon for the hardcore folks.

After much encouraging from S last year I'd done the half and had enjoyed it enough to decide to go for it again. We convinced my bro to sign up for the 10k on the spur of the moment as we were picking up our race packs on Friday evening, so when Saturday morning dawned, we all were suiting up in our race gear. We drank the special German dissolving mineral tablets for extra energy, and then moseyed down to the starting line (see, bonus feature of living in 101!).

This race is great for the scenery and fresh cool temperatures, because it's almost completely flat, and because the course offers plenty of viewing and cheering spots for spectators. We all start off by running over the bridge across Tjörnin, then out towards the university and down a street that seems to have made a reputation for being the pots-and-pans cheering street. From there it runs along the southern side of the peninsula out to Seltjarnarnes before crossing to the northern bay view. Along the street heading north, an old group of dudes had set up a band on the street and were playing cheerful blues tunes as we ran by (applauding them, of course). The course then turns back to the center of town, passing downtown to follow the edge of the bay to the working harbour area where cruise ships, grain ships, cargo ships are all lined up. Then, there's the one gentle uphill in the course before turning back and running the last painful kilometers to the center of town again.

My friend H had her rollerblades out that day so she popped up a few times to cheer, along with our friend S who cycled along the course to provide much-needed encouragement in the long stretch after the halfway mark. This, combined with a beautifully sunny day and only a smidge of breeze made the race really an amazing experience and I finished with the determination that I will definitely do this race as long as I'm living here.

After the race we all toddled home slowly to grab swim gear and go laze in the rooftop hotpot in our local pool, along with all the other runners- my locker room was full of women bearing the telltale red marks of sports bras rubbing shoulders and ribcages raw over long distances. Next, the traditional post-race hamburger & beer at Vegamót before we hobbled home to rest.

One of the few unfortunate things about this marathon is that it's on the same day as the most thrilling day in Reykjavík, a full program of cultural events of every sort imaginable- music to suit any ear, food, art exhibits, theater, historical walks, and street markets of all flavours. My brother and I lazed in the sunny living room for a few hours, listening to the thrum of activity outside before we worked up the energy to climb the hill to Hallgrímskirkja where a massive choral festival was in progress. Choirs from countries ringing the Baltic sea were in attendance, and we arrived just in time to hear an incredibly skilled Danish choir perform. Sitting in a late-arriving shaft of sunlight, tired from the race and in cozy family companionship while perfectly executed music washed over the audience was exactly the right way to spend the hours approaching evening.

We listened to a few more acts until a shy Greenlandic choir took the stage in their traditional costume, embroidered leggings and all. They seemed new to the traveling performance experience, a directorless choir with a minimal repertoire, so we stayed for a few songs in encouragement, then departed for other venues. My brother had mentioned wanting to take home some local music so we stopped at 12 tónar on our way down the hill where he dove into the experience of this great shop with enthusiasm. Sipping on red wine while tucked into their snug basement listening corner, we swapped discs back and forth until we'd found just the right CDs for him to take home.

Then, we wandered down the street a bit further, past the discarded trousers and shoes that were apparently installed to test our preconceived notions (of what, I can't say), through the crowd listening to a typical girl-with-a-guitar sound, down to where 2 extremely young DJ types were mixing some infectious rhythms. Some kind of performance was happening on a balcony so we paused before returning up the street via one of the noodle soup shops there. I'd heard this place was good and the crowd inside seemed to support it so we ordered 2 bowls of the beef and weren't disappointed. The meat is tender, the broth rich, the sprouts nice and crunchy, and the hotness the right temperature to warm you up on an August evening as darkness descends over town.

And then, home. We passed the streets full of illegally parked cars that were getting thoroughly covered with parking tickets, just like they'd threatened to do in the news. It was good to be able to walk home, and also avoid what was probably the biggest traffic jam of the year as everyone tried to leave after the fireworks were over. At that time we were all sitting in a row on the couch with wine and specially imported Reese's Pieces (note: do not go well with wine but are still deeeelicious when not having had them for a year). Yes, life downtown has its great days.

Calabrese Concerts

Here we are on an even year so that meant choir trip again! This year we returned to Italy, to Calabria, where the choir director's wife P comes from. She'd arranged a marvel of a trip that left us all breathless with the pace of everything but certainly having seen as wide a variety of landscape as can be achieved in just 7 days.

We flew to Bologna and then to Lamezia Terme, then by bus to our hotel, a network of holiday apartments situated on a cliff facing the sea and Stromboli's menacing silhouette on the horizon. To get to the beach, we sauntered down a path trimmed with geraniums and exotic, unrecognizable plants where lizards skittered underneath, then through a lemon grove to the lovely white sand beach. It was a properly European beach so our hotel had its own squadron of parasols and beach chairs, all striped the same and blazoned with its name. Certainly civilized. Of course everyone went crazy absorbing sun, taking lemons from the grove, floating in the aquamarine water, and relishing the delicious simple wines.

Calabria is a wonder of cultivation, and P had selected restaurants and trips that ensured we'd see the maximum marvels of the area. The area where we were was chock full of fields growing the famous red onions, tomatoes, olives, lemons, hot peppers, grapes. Hedges of rosemary bloomed everywhere, and the roadsides were choked with mint. The many dinners we had together took well advantage of this, serving up local seafood flavored with all the abundant vegetables and herbs. One place we went to, called Agriturismo Villani, served only food that had been grown and prepared in the immediate region- fresh sheep cheeses, hams of all sorts, glorious firm eggplants roasted and drizzled in olive oil, zucchini blossoms & frittatas. Served with a view of the sea or in an ancient courtyard ringed with flowering hedges, it was an unforgettable experience.

Between all the eating we held three concerts, each in a different sort of church with its own acoustics. In Tropea, a tiny seaside village, the mayor of the town attended and we were filmed for the local news as we sang in their "cathedral" (stop imagining Notre Dame and downscale a lot). In Lamezia Terme we sang in the lemon-colored Rococo church where P and the director had gotten married, and the audience was full of P's relatives. In Gerace, a medieval city perched on a hill, we sang in a church built by the Normans nearly a thousand years ago. The building, the largest religious building in Calabria, threw our song up into the rafters so that it was as loud in the back as it was next to us, but we could barely hear the person next to us singing. We sang on the ferry from Sicily, we sang in the peaceful church amid the pines at Certosa, a monastary high in the hills. We sang in the mass at Lamezia Terme on the day of a festival where the street had been converted into a market selling pistachio cookies, slices of coconut, nuts & candied fruits, and all sorts of other baubles.

This part of Italy is definitely not easy to get to or to explore, especially the way we were doing it. We had several bus mishaps due to the twisted hairpin roads that interlace the spine of this part of the country, and other than two disgruntled women from New Orleans, I met not a single other American. The beach where we were was mostly filled with Italian holiday-goers except for one Russian family, and it was pretty clear that almost everywhere we went it was not a place that tourists tended to visit. The only exception was Taormina, a village in Sicily that's been frequented by famous foreigners for some time now. After having been traipsing the streets of Lamezia Terme, it was a bit odd to be in a place where there were signs in German and people could speak a few words of English. That's where I skipped out on the museum and wandered down the narrow streets until I found the public garden, a marvel of follies and topiary hedges where Italian kids piled upon each other in giggling heaps, and the view of Etna and the curving coastline was framed by cedar trees and a fluorescent bougainvillea hedge in full bloom.

Unlike the first trip to Italy where I was lost and lonely in the language, and where I didn't have the proper summer travel clothes, I could speak and understand enough to actually grasp what was going on. It also helped to have light summer dresses and sandals that can handle the cobblestones and narrow streets. On our last day in Bologna I remembered the afternoon 4 years ago when I'd been alone and sweltering in Bologna, not sure what to do except wait for the bus to the airport. This time I lunched with a delightful group of people (oh, such pizza!), explored with enthusiasm, and absorbed the vibrancy of the city with happiness before one last ice cream and then back to the airport. Overall it was one of the most memorable choir trips ever. I returned slightly more brown, with a suitcase full of lemons and delicious jams and liqueurs, my Icelandic markedly better, and having shared an incredible experience with an extremely varied group. That's what travel should be about.

german holidays

Germans know how to do Christmas properly, from the gluhwein and the markets to the vast and ancient churches that host vesper services. The markets are a unique experience that no American replica I've visited has been able to reproduce faithfully. To start with, I've had the happy fortune to be able to visit one of the oldest and most famous of all the German markets, a festivity that consumes the whole center of the old city and spreads filaments in all directions. It's bursting with inventive handcrafts, magical gifts, the usual straw-star ornament stalls, and of course, anchoring the whole experience, acres of stalls hawking any type of spiced or chocolate-coated cookie or confection you could imagine- lebkuchen, stollen, chocolate-covered fruit, waffles topped with any one of six options, sausages, corn-on-the-cob, candied almonds, and of course, the gluhwein. It's not just wine here though- it's blueberry flavored, it's cherry flavor, it's even egg-liquor flavored. The best part is that it's not served in some thin paper cup that you toss when you're done, but in a proper china mug that you can keep or return for a refund. It's quite cozy to stand among friends and family in the chill, damp air (seems like this is how it always is here in December), the steaming mug in hand, watching the sparkle and bustle whir by on all sides. Even the most seasoned locals (my generous hosts included) appear to enjoy it as much as the newbies like me.

Once the market is closed, it's time for the church experiences. We had the choice of a handful of impressively majestic Medieval churches, but chose one of the most ancient for this evening. Winter services in Europe usually means wearing every stitch of clothing you came with since even the lucky ones with the heated seats will find it woefully inadequate warmth for the 2 hours among the anciently frigid stones that make up these Gothic buildings. The service was only an hour long but the good seats all started going about an hour before, so this evening, those arriving 10 minutes prior either stood or came equipped with their own deck chairs.

The service itself involved a lot of singing of a lot of songs I'd never heard before, even with my relatively extensive carol repertoire. Accompanied by an appropriately massive organ and a passel of trumpets playing in some hidden clerestory level, the experience was fittingly awesome for an evening such as this. As with last year though, my most favorite part was as everyone streamed out the great entrance doors to the joyously chaotic tune of church bells throughout the city ringing through the cobbled streets. Families in all directions were hugging and kissing and handshaking and throwing Christmas greetings to each other as they dispersed through the streets, wet with a sheen of fog, off to dinner and cozy evenings by candlelit trees.

apparently it's hard-coded

Today I did my swim in the morning, and afterwards joined the crew in the steam room. If you're after 8:30 but not quite to noon, the crowd is notably vintage, so I was the only person under 80 in the whole place. So I'm sittin there enjoying the heat when the entire steam room population of about 12 people suddenly erupts into song. The voices were a bit quavery and only one dude ventured into the harmony line, but the zest and enjoyment was undeniable. I'd have joined in if I knew the songs, but they were some kind of traipsing-in-the-mountains tunes that I'd never heard before.

Their enthusiasm waned when they realized they didn't know very many verses, but it was obviously entertaining enough that later when I was in the salt pot, some others that hadn't been there wanted the full rundown of the day's steam-room singing program. Later on in the locker room I heard yet more talk of who'd been there and what they'd sung. I guess it's a regular thing!

The group singing phenomenon seems to be unique to only a few of these northern countries- I'm told it happens in the Faeroe Islands, and I've witnessed drunken Danes in Reykjavík going at it, but the Finns and the Norwegians barely speak above a whisper so singing seems to be out. What is it about these places that make people feel the need to sing when in a large enough group, even when no booze is involved? It's actually part of what made the choir trip so wonderfully (and I'll admit nerdily) fun. I've always loved singing, and when you're in a group that also loves to do it and can do it in several parts, what better way to say you're happy with the trip and happy with your companions than to stop and sing a song on the street? We sang overlooking Tallinn, we sang in a restaurant, we sang on the street, we sang on the ship as we sailed. It's just one of those things that everyone really ought to try sometime.

(apologies to those waiting to hear about Finland.. I couldn't resist writing about this!)

Baltic direct

I have just arrived in Tallinn this evening, where the music is tinny and cheesy, and the keyboard is constructed with curious trapezoidal keys. To get here, I flew with my choir (on yet another of those famous Icelandic Choir Tours) to Helsinki this morning. Upon arrival we were deposited at the massive ferry terminal in the center of town to while away a few hours drinking Lapin Kulta and absorbing the lack of atmosphere in the low-ceilinged building.

Then to the ferry, a massive passenger ship holding nearly three thousand people, most of whom seemed to be on board for the delirious variety of activites on offer for the four hour sail. There was muzak dancing and gambling, there was a full Duty-Free style perfume shop, a vast liquor shop, and a stuff-yourself-silly buffet with chardonnay on tap like it was a keg of beer.

The ferry was so large that the effect of being on ship was almost unnoticeable until I stepped out onto the one deck on the 10 levels of ship, where the pewter sea stretched out to the unmarked horizon, and below me, the water foamed away from the huge hull in deep shades of bottle green. This will no doubt be an interesting week.

æfingabúðir

After a week of work in Norway, I returned to Iceland for the annual pre-season training trip for the choir, the vocal equivalent of the early spring rowing training in college, where we'd go south and row ourselves silly for a few days.

The choir trips are a bit shorter, a bit less strenuous, and for some reason always seems to take place on weekends of exceptionally bad weather, like the first time when I spent an entire weekend enshrouded in fog. This year it was that special kind of rainy weather that comes after lots of snow and results in skating rink parking lots everywhere, and lots of mysterious fog wisps. Our destination this time was the complex at Sólheimar, a place that's made a name for itself by creating a safe space for people with mental disabilities to live together. The complex is situated in a valley about an hour's drive from Reykjavík, and contains houses for the people, craft studios where they have woodworking, weaving, candle making, and other activities, a small store where they sell these items, a hotel, several guesthouses, a pool and a church. Most of the food is both organic and vegetarian there, and the buildings have been built with an eye toward recycling, renewable resources, and maximum efficiency.

The choir has grown so large that we occupied two houses, each with a large kitchen/living area and wings of double guestrooms spreading outward along the ridges above the central valley. Rather than singing in the living room as we did before, we got use of the lovely church at the highest point of the little community. The low walls of the building were snug in turf, and the vaulted ceiling of pale wood adorned with a chandelier of winged lightbulbs. With the trapezoidal windows looking over the foggy landscape it was a serene and perfectly isolated place for a day and a half of musical focus.

We sang all Friday evening, and most of Saturday in the church, then stuffed ourselves into cars and drove through the swirled mist to practice some more at Skálholt, the seat of the Icelandic bishops. Like most places in Iceland, this place is steeped in fierce history and has been significant in the story of Iceland since the 11th century, but little human-generated evidence still remains of all this activity. The church built over ruins of previous constructions is only from the middle of the 20th century, and while quite large by Icelandic standards, is still a rather cozy and non-awe-inspiring scale. Despite the size, the acoustics, so sorely lacking in many Icelandic churches, are superb there. The songs that sounded decent elsewhere sounded exceptional in this special place, ringing against the dark stone floors and spreading around us.

We sang until evensong, when a few people filtered in the door of the church, and we then all lined up on opposite sides of the church for a short call-and-response service. At the end we shared a moment of silence that was remarkable in its perfect quiet. 40 people ranged along the walls of this stone building in the middle of the open countryside, so perfectly still that the only sound was the rushing of the geothermally heated water through the radiators. No cars, no horns or city hum, just the exhalation of the earth through the pipes and the breathing of the people standing beside me.

After that, it was time for some noise at dinnertime and afterwards. We ate at the restaurant in Sólheimar at two large tables, and by the end of the dinner everyone was swapping chairs, and the conversation volume rose as the wine glasses emptied. We finished by singing a favorite song, then headed back up the hill for more singing, more conversation, and more eating. Unlike last time when my Icelandic comprehension abilities shut down as the trip progressed, this time they blossomed. Although the choir now does have several other non-Icelandic members, none of them were actually on the trip, so I was alone in the sea of pre-aspiration and lilting cadence, hearing of my choir director's California exchange student experience, talking of the deliciousness of Boston beer.

This group has been a constant over my years here, and it's nice to see how things have changed over the course of these group getaways. We've been to a bunch of places in Iceland and outside of Iceland and each time there' s a new word learned, a new person I talk to, the feeling for a new song.

putting it all together

This week's been the last few rehearsals before our Big Concert on Thursday. We're singing "L'Allegro, Il Penseroso ed il Moderato" by Handel, a solid few hours of music with a little bit of everything- grandeur, speed, solemnity, frivolity, every pairing of vocal range, large and small ensembles, and a passel of Baroque instruments. It's so very much like all those times in high school when we finally put everything together- wriggling teenagers, and musicians that the director had somehow managed to pull from the fields and forests of southern Vermont to create a proper orchestra. So thrilling, the chorus risers, the clutter of music stands, the bows of the violins rising and falling together, the un noticed staffs and measures on our music books below the choral lines so very alive and vibrating through the long room. Here in Iceland it's all very much the same- the people may come from the lava rather than the forests, but there seems to be a sort of Universal Baroque Musician look- the hair, the fleece, the sensible shoes, the emphatic eyebrows on the male version. It's a comforting thing to see.

These rehearsals with the instruments are sometimes better than the performance itself- hearing how the phrases are fine-tuned during practice after practice, the rush of that first time when what had been one person playing piano becomes a twenty-piece orchestra, the director's commands shouted over the music to different sections. It'll all be over too quickly but until that time I'm enjoying every minute of it, and I'm so glad to be here this year instead of abroad like I was for last year's concert.

*and if you rvk dwellers have nothing else to do on Thursday, come on over. It'll be swell

Ísland, ég elska þig

I returned home on Friday after a week in Norway. As we flew over the eastern coastline, I caught a glimpse of Jökulsárlón, the magical sea-glacier-lagoon-ocean place to the east, then the landscape below opened across the glaciers and rivers and the emptiness of this vast land. Not bad. I got home to find all kinds of delicious post had arrived, and the wonderfully thoughtful package delivery technique they've got going here. Rather than trying to drop the boxes off during the day, the post truck comes round in the evenings when people are home, so you actually have a chance of receiving it. Clever stuff, that.
And then on Saturday, I'm walking to the pool when the Baggalútur song I talked about a few months ago came up on the shuffle, and I thought, "yes, indeed, Ísland, ég elska þig". These days it feels like there ought be no other place than this, with the columbines and buttercups twining round the front steps, the lilac-looking flower things (so poetic, no?) bursting over walls and crowding the sidewalk. Iceland is truly, fully idyllic now, all jammed with touristpeople staring skywards at sunset, lined up Easter-Island style along the bay.
I mowed the lawn today, and as spiraled in, inhaling the scent of trimmed grass and the little herbs growing between the blades, I felt all penny-lane in the little yard, ducking under the clothes lines where I dry my sheets. I'm sure some of my joy is that I got my visa renewal acceptance letter in the post on Friday, and I'm legal for more than another year. It's not unexpected but somehow the little "hey, stick around" gives me that extra boost that makes even mowing the lawn seem superfun.
By now this going-away-makes-Iceland-love-bloom is a bit of a tired theme, but it is really remarkable how thoroughly the enchantment returns every time. I like Norway- I love the trains with the ski racks in them, the sneakpeek at warm weather and the chance at bare legs. I love the new diversity of people on the street, and the lushness of a poperly forested countryside. It's great to feast on culinary diversity for a week, but Iceland right now is at its most lovely and I don't want to miss any of it!

Oh, and before I forget, for you Baggalútur fans, they've got another unpublished song available for a listen on their website.

I come home on Saturday morning

So on Friday, in a continuation of the French Spring festival, I went to the Nouvelle Vague concert down at Hafnarhúsið (the harbor house, AKA Reykjavík Art Museum). It's a smallish venue with lots of lobby space and a well-organized ticketing process, so there was no standing around outside, no rushing the doors, or any of the usual concertgoing mania one gets when Not In Reykjavík. In fact, the only line I stood in was the line for my free beer. Although I'm sure the price was built into the ticket, it was so unexpected (FREE BOOZE! Are we still in Iceland?) that everyone started the evening off with that frisson of joy that free stuff gives you. Plus, when it's an audience of Icelanders, it does take a while to loosen them up for the clapping, the swaying, and sing-along, even when regaled with Latin American syncopation.

The crowd was Pretty People Reykjavík- lots of suits, lots of edgy and expensive glasses frames, lots of carefully styled disheveled hair on the women, and square jaws, dewy lips, and high cheekbones everywhere. Pleasant crowd-watching for sure. We situated ourselves at the perfect acoustic distance from the speakers, at a place where I could see through all the very tall people in the audience (even with heels making me about 5'11", I felt short there).

I'd only heard three songs by the group, and I don't know any of the band member's names, so like usual when I go to concerts here, I had no idea what I was in for. Adventures at every turn! Anyway, the group came out almost perfectly punctually (no opening act)- two female singers who I'll call by their dresses: sparkly and fringy, a guitarist, a bass player (the classical kind), keyboards, and percussion.

For the uninitiated, this is basically a cover band, playing songs by Blondie, Billy Idol, the Specials, the Clash, and a slew of others. They've Done Stuff to all of them, so for some people this is probably scandalous. However, when they're sung by a beguiling befringed babe with arm movements reminiscent of the illustrations of the famous 19th century singer Yvette Guilbert, it's hard to be angry.

They may have been borrowed tunes, but "Dancing with myself" done as a 30's jazz club ditty is actually pretty cool, and the two singers both had fascinating voices. Fringy had pipes like Janis Joplin crossed with a vintage singer that should have been draped across a piano, and Sparkly was husky, personal, and full of emotion. When they sang together it was another feeling altogether. They were fun to watch too, and actually looked like they were actually enjoying performing themselves (the glasses of what I am pretty sure was wine probably helped a bit too).

The rest of the group was equally entertaining. I couldn't see much of the keyboardist and his Mac thanks to Mr. Viking Banker in front of me, but the Brazilian flavors of the percussionist were catchy, and the bass player's one moment of glory was very moving. Plus, his red cowboy shirt was scorchingly awesome.

We managed to clap and stomp and "meira" our way to two encores, but the gig was up after only 2 hours, which caused another concertgoer to grumble that even concerts on Tuesdays didn't end so early. It did mean that the night was plenty young enough for a round of drinks up the hill at b5, where about half the place was carrying the bags from the CD sale table at the concert.

The other half was busy being beautiful or, in typical Reykavík fashion, watching or playing the chess game that was going on at the long table next to us. Yep, one of the style hound bars of Reykjavík, on a clear Friday evening, contains people playing games of strategy over beer. And there you have it. Friday to Saturday in our fair city.

midweek music

Yesterday, thanks to a guy I know at the French Embassy, I ended up at yet another event that was put on as part of the Franskt Vor (French spring) festival. It was held in the same venue as the music video recording last fall, only this time we weren't squashed into the tiny room at the side. The crowd was mostly foreign and heavy on the French, with the local population attending appropriately Ice-hipster cool. I spotted all the cool-people varieties last night that come out in droves on the weekend and for concerts like this. One girl with loud-colored tights, check (last night's representative was in scorching red). One ironic lopapeysa, check (he had skulls craftily knit into the yoke pattern), one girl clad in Rokk og Rósir wares (the local hipstervintage shop), and of course, plenty of guys with That Hairdo. It's the one that looks like hipster #1 hops into a car and sticks his head out the window hound-style, but facing backwards. Hipster #2 takes a few spins down Hringbraut, and with a little gel,voila, the perfect brushed-forward-and-stir style with no dryer time required! There was also one exceptional fellow wearing blue tiedye sweatpants and an orange lopapeysa. I think there's extra points for a guy like that.

Anyway, we'd all turned out to hear a combination of groups. Starting off we had Monade, two girls with guitars plus a guy on keyboards and another on percussion, accompanied by Jóhann Jóhannsson and his trombonists. Their sound was Belle & Sebastian without the crazy lyrics, Múm without the wandering percussion and surreal voices, Benni Hemm Hemm without the tight orchestral quality to the performance, AMPOP without that Icelandic melancholoy. In short, it was pleasant, listenable, and with decent movement but didn't feel really WOW. The lyrics might have been interesting, sometimes French, sometimes English, but it was difficult to hear them so I only could pick out the occasional phrase here and there.

The crowd kind of added to the feeling that it hadn't all come together. Maybe it's because it was a Wednesday, or maybe it's because I didn't realize that clapping and enthusiasm is not cool these days, but I actually spotted a guy sleeping in the corner midway through the set. The rest of the audience seemed kind of dull-eyed, with the exception of one American girl in the corner who was in full head-bopping mode. Don't get me wrong, the music was pleasant enough but just not really blowing my hair back...er.. forward.

Next came Angil, who educated us on a French literary movement called Oulipo that was fond of writing with interesting constraints. For example these Angil guys like to write their lyrics without using the letter E. Sounds a bit pretentious but their sound was much more interesting than the first group, with a hypnotic base drone and a tighter performance in general than the first band. One of the guys in the group was also a staff member at the French Embassy here and achieved some fame and press coverage last fall in a well-received play. He was playing a clarinet which was a bit difficult to hear but it was interesting to see him rocking out on an instrument I don't associate with that kind of band.

Since it was a school night I didn't stay to hear the whole set, so I hit the silent streets soon after that. On my way home it started to snow, tactile evidence of how winter's still hanging on to us a bit up here. There were hints of spring on my quiet walk through the neighborhood though- tightly folded buds on the low bushes behind Hallgrímskirkja, and near my front gate, flower shoots are almost six inches tall there. When this French spring festival started a few weeks ago, it certainly felt like the wrong season, but Iceland is catching up.

steaming, like krýsuvík

I know that a bunch of readers are now Baggalútur fans, so this one goes out to you. They've recorded a brandspanking new song, currently only available via their website. It was cooked up just in the past two weeks when a Swedish guy that plays with them (also a member of Hjálmar, the Swedish-Icelandic reggae band) came to perform in Akureyri. The guys decided to do a song in response to the ongoing environmental debate as Iceland continues to build aluminum smelters, disregarding the most valuable resource we do have here, the famous and inspiring landscape.

So, they wrote a song just like so (for those of you who can read Icelandic), and roped in the Gamlir Fóstbræður to add the sauce that only a bunch of older Icelandic dudes can supply. It's a choir composed of the former members of the famous and venerable Fóstbræður mens' choir (whom I last heard on Garrison Keillor's show here last May), and one of the members also happens to be the dad of a Baggalútur member, handily. They threw it all together last night and then posted it on their site.

Now that's a fresh song.

nerdtunes in austerity

I am a semi-big fan of 16th century choral music. When I was in college, I heard Victoria's Requiem on the radio the first time as I was supposed to be headed out the door for work. 20 minutes later I was still listening, my work forgotten, as I sat on the windowseat in my sunsplashed room.

Yesterday I got to relive the feeling with live music at a concert of this loved piece at Reykjavík's Catholic church-on-a-hill. Unlike the rest of the ecclesiastical architecture here, this church is almost old-world looking, with frilly multicolored floor tiles, an organ loft with elaborate woodwork, marbled balustrades, and a full complement of stained-glass windows that yesterday streamed with the blazingly frigid sun. The whole building is rather miniature compared to the Great Churches of Europe and still maintains the Scandinavian austerity by keeping the gold trimming down to a few framed paintings and only a saintly statue or two. The windows are also just colors- nary a crucifix or Ascent to Heaven in sight.

The Catholic consistency carries to the seats as well, which are properly wooden, properly uncomfortable, and pitched ever so slightly forward so you get a nice thigh workout the whole time or you end up giving in and genuflecting on the kneelers, the only padded surface in the place. It was even not really warm enough in the building, although not quite as bad as the completely unheated concert I went to in a tiny southern Czech town where everyone huddled in full outdoor gear, our breath steaming up towards the multi-story headless saints painted on the walls.

But I digress.. this was about music originally. The performers were a blend of English and Icelandic singers, only two or three voices per part, and even a man singing alto in proper Renaissance fashion. The crowd was more mixed than I would have expected from a concert of this type, were it to have been held in the US. Such a concert in the States would have been more gray hair than hipster-scarves, but here it's an all-types interest group, from the usual older Classical Music Lover couple, the politician-style guy with the enormously coiffed hair in front of me to the just-stepped-from-his-garage-band-practice guy in the sixth row. Something for everyone, apparently.

The performace was beautifully executed, and my kórstjóri S (who also attended, and apparently once played the organ there) was right in saying that the acoustics of this church are among the best in Iceland. I suspect it's partly because of that unpadded, uncarpeted aesthetic that creates just the right amount of resonance without adding too much of its own commentary. The voices were clear, the execution well-timed, and although I could argue with the pronunciation of some of the French lyrics, the mood took me straight back to that morning in college when Iceland was nowhere in my thoughts and I forgot about everything in the wandering voices.

the result

Back in November I wrote about being at a New Years party a little too early as part of a video shooting... well here's the result of that evening. Readers, it's up to you to decide if I'm visible in the final party scene shots at the end. I discovered there are a few other videos on Youtube from the group, including this one called "Two Friends" and this very jolly song. The lyrics of the third one are saying "smile, it's free", and at the end includes some shots of various Well-Known Icelanders telling us to smile in the newsroom and while on a motorbike, among other locations. I love this one. I had to watch it three times already and I'm going in for a fourth.

Also, because everyone's all talented like that here, this guy I work with is in ANOTHER group, shown here singing the Icelandic version of O Holy Night in a male acapella chorus. Awesome.