Front Page Reviews & AIR

This summer my best friend and I visited Iceland. Before our journey, we researched this very small and very interesting country. We talked to locals and former visitors and the thing they all said was that the music scene in Reykjavik was unlike any other place in the world. Music is an essential part of the paradoxes of Icelandic culture, they said. True to their words, every store, café, restaurant, and public place we passed through had either live or streamed music playing at a comfortable level and just about all of it was by Icelandic musicians. We met countless people who were in bands or who were solo musicians; even the guest house where we stayed has its own music label.

One evening, when the sun was still quite high in the sky, we went to Café Flora in the Reykjavik Botanical Gardens for a free concert. This is where we saw our first live performance by an Icelandic band. 1860 is an indie band based in Reykjavik that formed last year as a side-project of The Telepathetics. They are a trio—Ottar, Hlynur and Kiddi—who sport a rotating cast of guest musicians. Their harmonies are stellar; they play a number of you-don’t-see-that-everyday instruments like the electric mandolin and the glockenspiel. Also, they pass instruments between one another from song-to-song; evidence of their versatility. This versatility lends itself nicely to 1860’s eclectic musical style. We heard echoes of The Beatles in the harmonies of  “Money”; of Parisian music in the accordion-inspired “Memory”; of indie dance in their hit single “Snaefellsnes”; and even American country in their twangy “Artificial Daylight”. Like other Icelandic musicians such as Björk and Sigur Rós, they take inspiration from a broad array of musical traditions and meld them into their own unique style.

However, unlike Björk and Sigur Rós, this band is relatively unknown outside of Iceland. They perform all over their native land and their single, “Snaefellsnes” is featured on the State Icelandic radio station, but they are ready to go international.  This November they released their debut album, Sagan, world-wide and they are planning a slew of gigs abroad. They titled their EP Sagan because as they told me, “Sagan means ‘the story’ in Icelandic and also as a tribute to [the] late Carl Sagan. We are all science nerds.”  

After the show at the Botanical Garden a local told me that not only is the music scene vibrant and ever-present on the streets and in the bars and cafes of Reykjavik, but there are also an incredible number of free concerts by well-known acts like Sigur Rós and Björk. During the Winter months, when the country is in perpetual darkness, the number of free live performances skyrockets--as an ode to solidarity and power of music carry a country through darkness. I was lucky to see 1860 perform during the Summer months—the time of the midnight sun—when the country opens up for warm weather and visitors like me.

You can track 1860 and other Icelandic bands at the Icelandic blog Icelandic Music Maffia.