Halló! This just in: SUMMER HAS STARTED. What does this mean? Well, it most certainly leads into the fact that I have a month and a half to go until I am breathing Icelandic air. I’ll be preparing for this trip in the next month, learning as much Icelandic as possible and unfortunately packing as much as I can into a camping backpack and a few duffels. On the other hand, I will also be at work listening to all the bands featured in this summer’s ATP Iceland festival, or All Tomorrow’s Parties Iceland. This is a music festival happening over four days at Ásbrú, a former NATO base in Keflavík, Iceland. This year it will feature bands and artists that do not hail from Iceland (Slowdive, Portishead, Interpol, Mogwai, and more!) as well as those that are Icelandic, which I want to highlight in a bunch of posts before I set out for Iceland.

I thought it would be appropriate to start off with a group playing at ATP that has just realized a wonderful album called “Silkidrangar” or “Silky Rock Pillars” in English. This group is Samaris, a band with a beautiful reputation of being deeply moving and gracefully melodious, like a small bud slowly blooming into a flower.  One reviewer referred to them as “glacial,” moving slowly, coldly and with purpose. The album title “silkidrangar” seems to be an accurate portrayal of the soft, haunting element in their music. Imagining rock pillars, basalt columns, as silky and still stoic like stone is somewhat of a contradiction. This contradiction translates into the music by expressing the softness in melodies that reach deeply into oneself and anchor themselves like stones. Take for example, the single “Ég Vildi Fegin Verda,” the first released single off of the album:

Even if you don’t know Icelandic, the lyrics become so melodious that the mind lets them blend into their environment of instruments and digital constructions. Their lyrics actually revolve around the influence of 19th century Iceland poetry, and even if one cannot translate them, the poetic nature of them is undeniable and plainly showcased.

It is easy to imagine Samaris as a wonderful portrayal of the Icelandic landscape, as most often do with the music of Sigur Rós and Ólafur Arnalds, among other Icelandic artists. Ólafur Arnalds once said he found it funny that everyone said he must have been so inspired by Icelandic nature, because a few of his songs have nothing to do with Iceland (One, “Ljósið,” was initially made for a commercial about bathtubs!). Even if Samaris didn’t pull all of their songs from the landscape, that “glacial” feeling still remains as a key element in their work. The haunting melodies can be equated as music for the black sand beaches, the slow moving glaciers, quiet and mysterious highlands and volcanos.

Nonetheless, they are melodies that pull me into a culture that I have not yet experienced, and I will be terribly excited to feel Iceland all around me as they play in their native land.

I will leave you with a very popular and exquisite song of theirs, “Góða Tungl” or “Good Moon.” This song gives me all sorts of chills.