If you’ve seen Heima, you already know how much Iceland rules. If you need more proof, look no further than Reykjavik!, who pummeled my nuts into a fine powder last night at Maggie Mae’s.

Guitarist Haukur Magnusson was a big sweaty mess as he melted face on guitar and babbled incoherently between songs. Meanwhile, lead singer Boas was all over the place, climbing speakers, diving into the crowd and generally causing a giant ruckus. At one point, he barreled off the stage straight toward me and I got myself clotheslined on the microphone cord. He made up for the minor assault though later in the set when he handed me the mic and asked me to introduce myself. He said I’m a nice guy and that people should talk to me.

He’s right. You should.

Two days to go, but one of my most memorable sets of the festival for sure.

Loney, Dear, which is essentially one young Swedish dude named Emil Svanängen and whoever he can rope into playing with him, is basically a fey-music badass. No, he’s not ever going to make anyone contemplate starting a circle-pit, but sometimes I just want to sit around in a sweater-vest, cut out collages and sip blueberry Stoli, and for those moments, nothing beats Loney, Dear’s album Loney, Noir. It rocks in a most emasculated manner.

Every time I hear his track “I Am John” I get super excited all over again, and thank the heavens that Sub Pop exists to find and put that shit out in the US (How much longer they’ll exist? That’s another story and good fodder for the rumor mill…).

The video for “I AM John” was directed by Andreas Nilsson, who blew up a minute ago for his work on The Knife’s “Like a Pen” video. But this shit is way better:

Happiest music to be set to a cartoon about assassinations, ever.
Plus, there’s a death orchestra, and a dude dancing with a reindeer. What a wicked display of raditude.

If anyone wants to fly me out to Reykjavík during October 19-21 I will totally check out Loney, Dear, plus Deerhoof, mum, Of Montreal, !!! and about 100 other bands at the Iceland Airwaves festival. I would totally do that for you. But if I meet Emil there I’m going to try and convince him to get rid of that errant comma. Gotta ditch that shit holmes. Loney, Dear, you’ve been warned.

On June 1st, Artist in Residence released In a Frozen Sea: A Year With Sigur Ros, a publication that follows the band through the last leg of their Takk tour through their native Iceland. In addition to featuring beautiful photos of the band in action — playing shows in the modern capital city of Reykjavik as well as the rustic Icelandic countryside — the book also contains photographic proof of the existence of elves.

Pretty groundbreaking. Check out the press release after the jump.

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