The ghost that carried us away...

Proud though I am of UK music you may have realised by now that I'm almost equally at home delving into that which comes from beyond these shores. Somewhere, almost in the middle of the nowhere that divides Europe and North America, is a nation that in its entirety has a population (~300,000) no greater than a modest city or just about 60% of that of the state of Wyoming. The latest from this land of musicians that has come to my attention is the band Seabear...


In musical terms Iceland is somewhere strange indeed: in 2007 the better known artists Bjork and Sigur Ros have both released much anticipated albums and we should not forget other Icelandic artists such as GusGus (who - first pub quiz fact - are unique as the only Icelandic act to have had a #1 hit single in Mexico) and their erstwhile female vocalist Hafdis Huld. She is now a solo artist and released her first solo album, Dirty Paper Cup, in 2006 (and it was one of my top-ten albums of 2006) and bands, such as Múm that have taken a more acoustic approach to their music.

Seabear are another Icelandic act worthy of note and this album, their first, sees them recently signed to the Berlin-based independent label Morr Music. It is actually sung in English nearly free of any accent, as if that matters, which is actually by far the least of its virtues because it is almost impossible not to like every one of the twelve tracks; at least at the moment track 2, Cat Piano, has my vote but only by a whisker.

There is more: the album is currently readily available on 12" vinyl and their recent single is also available on 7" and is a cover version of a song that one might deem should never be covered by anyone --- it is nothing more sacred than the post-punk angst of Teenage Kicks by The Undertones. Despite the apparent minefield it has actually been widely covered down the years and KT Tunstall sometimes performs it in her live set. Here is some additional, and quite useless, pub-quiz trivia...
Teenage Kicks was apparently John Peel's favourite song ever and, apocryphal as that may be, it was certainly performed at his funeral and also was, on his show in 1978, the the first song that was ever deliberately played twice back-to-back on BBC Radio 1.