Jan 28: Icelandic Music 1: Lockerbie

Periodically on the blog, I will be sharing suggestions for Icelandic music. This will be from artists who are from the country, and which one might listen to while travelling through the landscape, perhaps on a coach as the light dulls at the end of a day in the field, and you are looking forward to reaching your hotel and your evening meal.

The first band I am going to feature is not the 'obvious' one... you can perhaps guess who that would be. They'll appear later on the blog...

Lockerbie are a band who have been on my playlists for five years or so now. They are from Reykjavik, and are described on their Facebook page as having:

".... a unique position in the Icelandic music scene with their melodic pop/post-rock, sweet phantasmagorical timbre and dreamy soundscapes".

They have been described as follows:

In the wake of Sigur Ros, Lockerbie are a post-rock band characterized by Icelandic lyrics, but even though Doddi, the singer of the group, admits to be inspired by Jonsi, the band aims to get something different from the most famous icelandic post-rock band of all times. It’s like Lockerbie represent just the positive side of post-rock, the dreamy and sweeter one; in fact, they are open to pop sounds and almost fairy atmospheres. Which is something you can instantly foresee from an album cover like this one, from their album “Ólgusjór“.

We had the chance to listen to Lockerbie live. They have a particular attitude, a bit static but full of “quite crazyness”, if you want. Especially if while enjoying the performance you focus on the instrument which seems to characterize their sound the most: the keyboards, mastered by David, who plays without shoes and most of the time with eyes closed, deeply following the sound, taken away by a sort of ecstatic vision.
YouTube Channel

Here's a video for a song from their first album.

And what it means:

Tell us something about “Laut” and its nice video!

“Laut” is about a journey to a place that is called “Laut” (a word which in icelandic means “a beautiful place in the nature”) and this person is going to meet another person… Something Doddi had a dream about a while ago! The video was done by Sverrir Brynjólfsson and Arnar Halldórsson, who needed to work at a video project at that time, so we can say we mutually helped each other. We all act in it and it was very fun making the video; the result was amazing, ‘cause colours, light and atmosphere match perfectly with the music and lyrics of the song!

Their music is also in this video from Tiny Iceland:

This is Iceland from Tiny Iceland on Vimeo.
Music : Laut (CJ Lavoire Re-Edit) , Lockerbie (http://www.myspace.com/lockerbiemusic)
Filming and Editing: Timothée Lambrecq

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