|07-NOV-2015|  Early night last night by Airwaves standards, and we all needed the sleep.  We woke up refreshed this morning and headed out to meet our friend Leana for breakfast at Cafe Paris. It was very interesting to talk all things Reykjavik with a “local” who’s also American.

After breakfast we made our annual pilgrimage to the Kolaportiđ (flea market), which continues to be a popular destination for the locals. Jeff flipped through some records; I picked up a CD.

Ventured out again around 3:30pm to  Bad Taste records for a ghostigital off-venue show then looped back through Mengi to catch Kippi Kaninus – Jeff reviewed their record for Life In The Vinyl Lane a while ago.  Wasn’t expecting a trumpet, trombone and baritone. Welcome to Airwaves.

Started the on-venue at Gamla Bio, then tried to get into Harpa. The line to get upstairs to the actual venue doubled back on itself in the lobby and was moving at a snail’s pace. EVERYONE was there to see Beach House.  We decided after about 10 minutes (and 15 feet) that seeing music was better than not seeing music so bailed and went to NASA for the night.

Tomorrow is the big finale at Vodafone Hall, where we’re expecting to catch 5 -6 of the 8 bands. I can’t believe Airwaves ’15 is almost over!

Random observation: HUGH fake fur coats are all the rage here for both men and women. This particular outerwear makes no sense considering the weather – everyone looks like a soaked yeti.

If you’ve followed the blog for any previous Airwaves that included a ghostigital show, you know we’re HUGE fans of this industrial project by Einar Orn and Curver.

We posted up early inside Bad Taste – a local record store and label owned by members of the Sugarcubes, including Einar – to catch this afternoon’s off-venue show.

Curver was late, so Einar shared a story about their Thursday night show, playing ahead of The Pop Group who were very influential to his early musical career. He is very engaging, and seemed to enjoy just chatting with us while we waited.

Once Curver showed up with the magic case of electronics and plugged in a few cords, we were good to go.  The 18 minute stream-of-consciousness assault was over in a flash and we shared it with about 40 of our closest friends packed into the shop and another 20 – 30 outside. Including David Fricke of Rolling Stone, whom we see at EVERY ghostigital show. We had a Bjork sighting too.

Controlling the “scratch cassette” from Curver’s board that was passed around the front few rows during the set. 🙂

Always wanted to be a DJ ….

Kippi Kaninus at Mengi. Probably 100 people crammed into this little performance space.  Could have fit a few more if we tossed out the baritone. 🙂

Kælan Mikla was described as dark-wave/punk and I think that’s pretty accurate. These ladies put on a dramatic 30 minute set and we’ll definitely be looking for their new material early next year.

The legendary Dr. Gunni – musician, author and historian of Icelandic music.

Vök, an electro/dark-wave trio. They recently released an EP that we’ll be on the lookout for tomorrow. Good stuff! Jeff and I saw their first-ever show when we were here on a non-Airwaves trip a few years ago.

QT, remixing her j-pop-esque vocals and music with samples for an appreciative crowd at NASA.

That brings us to East India Youth – this guy was on my list to see, but conflicted with some sets at Harpa that were also intriguing.

Thanks to Harpa’s massive line, we got to see this awesome show.

Non-stop energy and sound for 40 minutes. He could wind up the crowd like a DJ with the electronics, rock the bass like a metal-head, and throw around some pretty good lyrics … all at the same time!I