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Rating: THE DARK SIDE OF ICELAND
Forget the cold, yet "domestic" and "welcoming" whiteness of all contemporary Icelandic music, that of Múm, Sigur Rós, and which, at times, even fits into the eclectic musical career of the ice diva par excellence: Bjork (think of the masterpiece "Vespertine," an album of twilights and childish wonders, of crumbling snow and poetry). And it is Bjork herself who is the voice of this album, with KUKL, one of the many bands where she was the vocalist before reaching fame with the Sugarcubes and her solo career, who released two albums: this "The Eye" (1984) and the more challenging, almost theatrical, "Holidays In Europe" (1986). Children of new-wave and punk, KUKL describe their musical universe with rough, yet refined sounds, glimpses of shadows, of hells, and leaps into the void.
And we were saying to forget the silent beauty of certain Nordic music that is almost whispered and delightful, because this album oozes with sensations that lead to indefinable oblivions, stirred by monsters with huge fangs and invisible creatures. A debut with a bang that disintegrates into eight unpredictable and often naive pieces that remain impressed: from the memorable "Anna" (also unforgettable is the music video where a very young Miss. Birch with a bob cut is adorned like a bride of darkness), a splendid and contagious track, almost tribal in its unsettling organ and drum procession, to the raw and marvelous opening of "Assassin," passing through a nice easy-listening of the sustained "Dismembered" and the irresistible guitar riff that unleashes screams and acid-drenched parallel universes in the beautiful "Seagull," perhaps also dictated by the law of improvisation: free, ancestral music, often devastating and tormented.
A record with the spontaneity and sweetness of a child looking at the world for the first time, despite certain dark abysses it can unleash, as in the playful and joyous "Open The Window And Let The Spirit Fly Free," compelling in its indecision of being hope or despair, lost as it is in the unjustified violently happy euphoria and a pang triggered in the soul like a devastating fury.
Dense and highly inspired, "The Eye" is a record few remember, but certainly impressive and capable of gracefully throwing you into a sonic apocalypse. Driven by moods of every kind and by sensations traveling from one note to the next, it is an album that can always be listened to again with surprise, born from an embrace between purely adolescent discomfort, adulthood, and childlike naivety. Not to be missed, "The Eye" is the scream of an Iceland lost in snow and mist, but not afraid to shout, even whispering, its magical introspections.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Assassin (03:16)
I'm dead
Lying on the floor
I'm dead
Listening to the floor
Where does it end
And me, and me
And me, and me
I'm dead
Kicking
I'm dead
Hitting
Where does it end
And me,
And me
Lengthen one side
Licking the sole
Help
Help
I'm dead until I stand up
I'm standing up
Lengthen one side,
Licking the sole
And bring this to an end
02 Anna (06:09)
Scatters from a bigger hole
Looking, knowing
Never the less
On the other side of a big river
Monster hidden behind a tree
Anna knew...
Anna doesn't see never the less
So nice hands
Come to me
Me touch you
No no what
So nice hands
With me
I am it
Cuts through the water
Shaken out of rising standing
Sense, touch
Not for the first time
No no what
Tie
So nice hands
Not touch that
The neck
Anna, I am it
Move, move, move
No not longer what
On the other side o a big river
Lies her own body
Anna, sinking
Anna is not here, sinking deeper
03 Open the Window and Let the Spirit Fly Free (02:36)
(Opadu gluggan svo s醠in geti flogi frjals)
Our task is reality,
Our aim is reality.
From reality we draw our breath.
From our wishes we get our will.
We need all our wishes to become true.
So they will become true.
We need to eliminate those who try their best to stop our wishes becoming true.
Those who try to close the window into our faces.
Open the window and let our souls fly free.
Let us get rid of the bomb.
We ask those who are versed in alchemy, cosmic orgone,
Paraphysics, tesla, pshycotronics, ultra-relativity, twistor-application,
G-strain energetics, zothyran physics, fourier trance formation,
Psionics, bio-synthesis, fan shih, quantum-physicks,
Tanmatra-transmission, para-vidya, eluthery, laelia-aelia,
Gur-preparation, enantiodromy, lein-tan, pao-pu-tsu, chin-tan,
Chandrakala, urheka and mega-mathematics to assist in the most supreme transmutation :
That of uranium and other radio-active metals into giving, not taking forces.
Laymen and priests of all beliefs and credos and invited to lend their mind to this experiment.
Scan out your brothers and sisters and link up now.
Blackeye.
A black eye. I didn't think I needed one. I thought I was indestructible.
A black eye to wake me up. My alarm.
It was an alarm or me that I needed one to realize my reality.
A black eye. An ugly vision of my life. To evoke my feelings and doings.
A black eye to realize the atrocities.
The ugliness which we are confronted with everyday.
To wake me up from my sleep. To avoid me getting the long sleep.
A black eye. To liven up my numb thoughts and feelings for what is reality.
To step me out of the movie and farce. A black eye to understand it wasn't just in the movies.
A black eye. Made me scream with angst and scare.
My scream was not from the origin of pain.
Nor because I got out of bed on the wrong side and walked in to the wall.
It was because it was my life, our existence, slowly been taken away by somebody else.
Numb no more. To remind me. A black eye.
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