photos by Jim Bennett
Ghostigital is the project of former Sugarcubes member and current Reykjavik city councilman Einar Örn and NYC-based Icelandic producer Curver. This genre-bending twisting dance music has previously featured a cast of all-star contributors, like David Byrne, Damon Albarn, and Nick Zinner.
During their set for KEXP’s broadcast live during Iceland Airwaves, the crowd at KEX Hostel has grown exponentially in anticipation of some Ghostigital weirdness from Icelandic punk legend Einar Örn. They started his set with “Trousers,” a song that begins with a wall of digital noise, over which Einar cries “There”s a storm in my mind... there’s a storm outside!” The song then drops into a quick, heavy beat that twists and turns with the pattern of his manic rambling interspersed with shrieking and convulsing.
In his next song, “Bursting,” Einar asks “Have you got any restrooms? I need a place to relieve myself from all of these ideas.” He was grimacing and twisting over the heavily distorted music. His punk roots are apparent in his performance style -- had this been a different venue, it doesn’t seem like a stage dive would have been out of the question.
The rest of Ghostigital’s set was a haze of glitchy, heavy beats, distorted guitar, slam poetry, and paranoid madness, all with Einar, twitching in the center like the ringmaster of a digital nightmare circus. Bearing witness to this cyclone of darkness may cause you to question the stability of your own mind.
One Comment
That was one of the strangest performances I’ve ever heard... And it was fantastic. Thanks for the experience.