Nov 20/08
A few days up north
I was working in Iceland last week. Wonderful place. And hey, not to profit at others’ expense or anything, but for once it’s actually quite an affordable spot to visit.
Reykjavik reminds me of a lot of Halifax, Canada, another great city where I lived for many years. The downtown area is tiny, even smaller than I expected, but it’s packed with restaurants, bars and clubs.
Most people will tell you the same thing about Reykjavik’s nightlife: at around midnight or 1am hundreds of tall, beautiful blond girls and their Nordic boyfriends form neat little queues in front of very un-smalltown doormen and their velvet ropes. Most places don’t even open until after midnight and the party goes until 6 or 7 in the morning. I would say “until sunrise” except the sun doesn’t rise until late morning this time of year.
There’s live music happening most nights. I saw a few bands, though I wasn’t lucky enough to see anything outstanding. I did, however, make the requisite stop into a good record shop and picked up some albums. You’ll hear from them today and tomorrow.
Today we’ll hear from Retro Stefson, self-described as “the pop in your popcorn and the smooth in your smoothie.” Nuff said.
I picked the first track on today’s post, Papa Paolo III, because it reminds me so much of early Gomez. I loved Gomez’s first release. What was that track called… Whippin’ Piccadilly, that’s it. Great road trip memories associated with that song. Was it really released 10 whole years ago? Man..
The second track, Sensemi, is gratuitous disco rock. At 11 minutes, 45 seconds, it represents the Reykjavik nightlife.. long, late, fun and a bit ridiculous.
Both tracks are from their 2008 release, Montaña. If you know of anywhere online where you can buy this album let me know and I’ll link it here. Thanks to Hinni for the purchase link – you can grab this album in MP3 format for only 9.99 € at the Kimi Record shop.
Enjoy. And yeah, that’s me getting wet/cold in front of the waterfall.
Retro Stefson – Papa Paulo III
Gomez – Whippin’ Piccadilly
Retro Stefson – Senseni
http://kimi.grapewire.net/shop/retro-stefson/montana
Sometimes I prefer the pictures you show than the music you play but, it’s good to eventually listen to tunes whith which you don’t bother your neighbourhood.
What was I listening to 10 years ago? Mostly roots reggae, a long time warmonger between friends, relatives and other close people, those who like and those who definitely don’t. BTW, it just happened at the same time that french inventive reggae music was finally taking it to the top. Tryo had their first relase, Massilia Sound System was getting massive, Zebda even had a national summer hit in the charts! And the former singer from la Mano Negra showed us he was now playing for a much larger audience: Manu Chao’s “Clandestino” showed up on the “sono mondiale” also in 1998. Man..
actually the name of the song is senseni with an ‘n’
-all the best!
fan nr.1
Thanks, Paul.
wow, what an awesome life you lead.
Whatever the name is, that long track is gloriously happy, stupid and great. Makes me wanna go from disco to disco, time after time, in a whirlpool of geysers.