Discography
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mammutmusic.com ♥ myspace ♥ twitter
Mammút, described themselves as "pitch black pop eating colorful Skittles". While I would disagree with "black" (this tells me the band is "dark" and "broody"), I feel this is a really great young energetic rock band with some gothic-esque vocals. They sort of remind me of an Icelandic version of Swedish all-girl band Sahara Hotnights. Anyway, they seem promising enough, after only three months of forming the band, the three girls, two boys band entered and won the annual "battle of the bands" Músiktilraunir. They were quickly spotted by various publications like Rolling Stone and UK's Music Week.
All of the songs their 2008 album, Karkari, are sung in Icelandic, including the English title "Gun". I suspect the "pitch black" statement might refer to dark, depressing lyrics, but based on just their aggressive music, I didn't feel like that was what they were going for.
Although they lost their original bass player, and I don't know how their debut album sounded, but it's clear that the new bassist did a wonderful job - especially on the best track on the album, "Geimþrá".
I suppose I did enjoy the more "rock" out tracks, like "Ég veit hann kemur fljótt" and (ironically first track) "Endir" (End), but even the mellower "Í leyni" builds up in intensity. But what I think ties everything together are the great angst vocals.
Karkari recently won "best Icelandic album" at the Kraumur awards, and quite deservingly so. You can hear for yourself by purchasing the album directly at mammutmusic.com. Still not convinced? Try out the free download of "Svefnsykt" from the vowel-hating RCRD LBL.
THE GASLAMP KILLER thegaslampkiller.com ♥ myspace The Motherfuckin' Gaslamp Killer is too non-print friendly and DJ Willow sounds too Buffy, so the mysterious DJ goes by simply as Gaslamp Killer. His latest EP, My Troubled Mind was released on August 4th on Brain Feeder Record/Alpha Pup Records. As the title suggest, the songs on this EP gives us a glimpse of Gaslamp Killer's head: a strange music mixture of surf, funk, psych. The strong track is "Turk Mex", a Middle-eastern-gypsy type of music with a strange turntable blend of lounge music. The one track that actually doesn't seem to belong on the EP is, "Birthday Music". Possibly because there are lyrics on this song. I especially liked the part where he mixed in this 70s soul song "Give a Damn" near the end of the song. | ALVIN BAND alvinband.com ♥ myspace Rick Alvin Shaier, from Miniature Tigers is essentially the one-man Alvin Band. What's interesting is that he will make his album, Mantis Preying, to be "officially" available on peer to peer networks on September 22nd (however, according to amazon, it looks like there will be a physical CD release - two-disc edition in fact). I'll be completely honest with you: I didn't like this album that much. I like the clever word play title, I like the idea of a one-man doing a cappella (there are no music instruments on the album) - but I just didn't enjoy the songs. It's kind of too non-traditional/experimental for my taste - the same reason why I dislike all the hot pitchforky bands like Animal Collective, etc. But hey, one man's garbage is another man's Earl Grey. I did give the album several listens (as evident on lastfm), just to give the album a second chance. The one track that I thought was good was "Lord of the Fly", which fooled me into think there were instruments. | |
SUNNA GUNNLAUGS sunnagunnlaugs.com ♥ myspace Sunna Gunnlaugs is an Icelandic Jazz pianist. Don't let the eight tracks on the Mindful album fool you: this is a full sixty minutes album. As in most case with jazz, some songs tend to go on and on and often without lyrics the songs seems to blend into one another. I did find the album to be soothing, relaxing. It's really perfect for watching the sun set, sitting with a book and petting your cat. I did enjoy "The People of My Heart", because each of the music players gets a semi-solo spotlight. From the lead piano by Gunnlaugs, to the Drew Gress bass, the Tony Malaby's sax, and the subtle Scott McLemore drums. I feel all the instruments are having a polite conversation around a dinner table. I was also drawn to its title track, "Mindful", a track that feels like a journey (the ending is quite different from the start of the song). You can download this track, as well as others, on her iLike page. Having just finished some US summer dates, Gunnlaugs will be doing local dates in Iceland:
08/23/09 Reykjavik Jazz Festival Reykjavik 08/30/09 Nordic House - Piano Only Reykjavik | NAREE nareemusic.com ♥ myspace I wonder why half-Thai, half-British Naree (and grew up in the Middle East!) doesn't mention anything about her first two albums, I'm No Fool (2004) and Proud (2005) on her website? Is she not, er, "proud" of them? Well her third album, tentatively titled Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde will be release somewhen this year? As you can see, I'm not really given much to work with here. I do have a six-track promo EP of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde for review. Each song is basically Disney pop music, the difference is that it seems to all been written by Naree. While you may think the title track, "Dr Jekyll" should be the clear winning song, I felt "Glamour Kills!" was far superior (despite the use of autotune). The song is so good, I can easily see why Naree was asked to open up for Pink in 2007. The band has a show coming up in New York:
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08/16/2009 11:26:18 ♥ vu ()
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