Exploring the Dark at Reykjavik Calling

“Oh, so you’re going to see the girly band?” Our neighbor looked sympathetically at my husband, sure he was being dragged to Mammút’s set by me, his wife.

We laughed him off. We had already identified the middle-aged man in the camper next to our tent in the Eistnaflug campground as one of those whose only measure of quality was the yardstick of external genitalia, and knew there was no point in arguing the merits a witchy band like Mammút to such a person.

“They are darker and heavier than you think they are,” Mammút’s Facebook page proclaims. They are also deeper, and for the phallocentric, deep, dark, wet places have always been a source of terror, a terror that they hide under a cocksure attitude of masculine superiority. But for women and men of courage – men like my husband, and Mammút’s own two male members – there is powerful magic there.

<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ht72FUbpOKc” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen><!–iframe>

I already knew that from hearing them live at Eistnaflug 2014. I can’t say “seeing them” because the venue was so packed that I couldn’t see anything beyond the shoulders of the Vikings standing in front of me that night. Even on that night in 2016, Mammút packed in such a crowd that we could barely get inside the room. But fortunately for me, they are less well-known in the United States, and I was able to get right up in front of the stage at KEXP’s Gathering Space for their Reykjavik Calling show. Finally close enough to see the band, I discovered that sounds I thought were pick slides actually came from the singer, and now I think I have a crush on their calm, serious bassist.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get good pictures. I forgot to bring my good camera, and only had my cell phone, which I had to hold in one hand, the other being occupied with a Brennivin cocktail.

Mammút’s come as-you-are appearance (their bassist played in sparkle-sock feet) gave way to the studied presentation of Fufanu. The contrast between Mammút’s raw authenticity cherished by my generation and Fufanu’s Millennial artfulness worked to the advantage of both bands. What might have seemed calculated in a lesser band, came off as attention to detail in Fufanu’s performance.

They strut around the stage with arrogant emotional detachment as carefully scripted for effect as the notes they play. With a look that crossed the mod 60s and early Rolling Stones (right down to the bass player’s duck lips) and a sound that evoked Joy Division and new wave, their pastiche is not derivative so much as cherry-picking ingredients from music history to make something entirely their own.

The resultant blend of darkness and danceability was thoroughly satisfying.

It’s a sign of how much cachet the Icelandic brand has built (and yes, I threw up in my mouth a little at that phrase) that the crowd cleared out after the Icelandic bands played. When I first started going to Taste of Iceland, the crowd was made up of a few Iceland-connected and obsessives and a lot of folks who were already fans of the local bands on the bill.

But this year, local act CHARMS played to a thinner crowd. I confess, I had considered skipping out after Fufanu. With a name like CHARMS, I was expecting glossy dream pop, and I was enjoying the darker energies of the Icelandic bands. But I’m glad I stayed.

Not just because Lupe Flores filled in on drums and was awesome, and not only because their lead singer is easy on the eyes. It’s because – well, actually, they can tell you better than I can:

In the 19th century, metropolitan Seattle was founded by freemasons, occultists, and spiritualists—but today, it’s being dramatically rebuilt by the tech sector. Out of this strange intersection of energies in the city’s history emerges Charms, a biomechanical noise punk trio whose necro-electro sound is akin to a thousand broken computers surging with blue crystal power.

As a writer, I should hate it when a band can describe themselves more accurately and artistically than I can. But I don’t. CHARMS is awesome. Necro-electro is not just a fun rhyme, although there is a playfulness to their music.

Their electronic sounds are entropic, evocative of dissolution and decay and the atomic chaos of death. In contrast with the spiritual darkness of Mammút or the chiaroscuro of Fufanu, CHARMS has a cyberpunk edge. There is emotion in their distortion, but it might the suffering of cyborgs.

I’m glad they’re local, I’d like to see them again.