We sat in a pillow-filled cubby hole cut into the wall in a Reykjavik basement. The venue was called Jacobsen Downstairs, and it was an October Friday night, the third evening of Iceland Airwaves 2009. I was trying to understand what was happening in front of me, a man sitting at a table twisting some […]
Tag: Ambient
Dynamic Movements – “Music For Exercise & Relaxation” (2024)
Dynamic Movements are the dynamic duo of Johan Agebjörn and Mikael Ögren. Their new album, Music For Exercise & Relaxation, was quite literally inspired by the exercise videos that were ubiquitous on late 1970s/early 1980s televisions and VCRs. Teal leotards, sweatbands, Reebok Pumps, and Thigh Masters are conjured forth in waves of era-appropriate synths with […]
Kiasmos – “II” (2024)
Kiasmos are the duo Ólafur Arnalds and Janus Rasmussen, and together they create some of the most subtly beautiful electronic music your ears will ever hear. Their first release was as part of a split 12″ with Rival Consoles way back in 2009 and they were fairly busy in the mid-2010s, putting out their debut […]
“V Ættir” Box Set (2024)
Árni Grétar is best known for his ambient and ambient-adjacent electronica as Futuregrapher. It’s been a decade since I first saw him perform live, set up in a bookstore at an Iceland Airwaves off-venue show during which he combined electronic music with a reading Icelandic poetry, and I’ve remained fascinated listening to him push the […]
Rapoon / Mykel Boyd – “Split” (2011)
Rapoon is Robin Storey, one of the co-founders of Zoviet France. His ten-and-a-half minute track “Stolen Diaries and Marijuana Dreams” takes up the entire A side of Split. Chanting and subtle tribal beats open before giving way to a brief intoned vocal segment, the delivery tinged with a distant, mechanical quality as it drones through […]