All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
While in Reykjavik I met up with Einar Örn, who along with Björk founded the Sugarcubes, to talk about his recent music and latest online project, grapewire.net, which is a great new place to keep up with the always happening Icelandic music scene. Grapewire has just launched so some of the pieces are still falling into place, but within the next month it will offer extensive news, reviews, tour schedules and interviews. In the meantime, the site’s store is stocked up with downloads from just about every Icelandic band you can think of, obscure remixes from bands like Sigur Ros, and the full catalog from Smekkleysa/Bad Taste, the label started by the Sugarcubes after they disbanded in 1992. It's a mother load, and best of all the songs are all high-quality 320kbps, free of pesky DRM and will play on any device; cost is 1€ per song, 10€ for an album.
Grapewire also has a nice collection of live show recordings you won’t find in the States. Örn’s current band Ghostigital, a collaboration with Curver, will release a concert performance there of last year’s excellent In Cod We Trust in the next two weeks. It will be available as a CD in the U.S., so keep an eye out for it if you’re looking for a wild and driven brew of jazz, rap and electronic experimentation. Ghostigital is also scheduled to release a new album next summer.
As for the scene in Reykjavik, you can hardly walk down the street without bumping into some cool-looking musician of one sort or another. Seriously, for a micro nation of only 300,000, Iceland must have the highest rock-star-per-capita of anyone with close to 1,000 bands. As we were leaving the café where we’d been chatting, Einar approached a tall, vaguely hung over looking Nordic man who was feeding his black lab doggie treats in front of a corner pharmacy. We joined in and got lost in the fun, then Einar said, “Oh, this is Holm, he’s the bass player for Sigur Ros.” I couldn’t help but laugh. That would never happen in New York.
