On a sun-drenched spring evening in North London, Ásgeir and his band transported us to the fjords and glaciers of their native Iceland during a spellbinding set that traversed languages and genres.
I arrived at Islington Assembly Hall after a false start at the nearby place-of-worship-cum-music-venue Union Chapel. Thinking this was where I’d find the Ásgeir gig, I assured the man on the door multiple times he’d find my name on the press list if he just looked one more time. With a saintly patience – befitting of his place of work – beginning to wear thin, he radioed his manager who promptly told me to clear off. Google revealed the error of my ways.
As it happened, they had a Bulgarian Women’s choir playing at Union Chapel that evening. So had I somehow wangled my way in, even I – with my limited knowledge of Ásgeir and his band – would surely have realised they hadn’t undergone a musical and aesthetic transformation even greater than Bowie’s – the greatest musical chameleon of them all.
It was a relief then, to be granted entry to the impressive art deco edifice that is the Islington Assembly Hall. I’d never set foot in there before and always had a suspicion that this was a wrong that needed righting. A quick trip to the gents confirmed my suspicion: the poster advertising their programme listed everyone from DJing royalty Midland to cult Mancunian returnees WU LYF via who-knew-they-were-still-doing-it The Hoosiers (I wondered briefly whether, after all these years, they were still seriously worried about Ray).
Being a former Islington local, I associate the venue mostly with weddings. I’ve walked past tens of happy couples emerging onto the steps, grins plastered on their faces as they totter to the metronomic click-clicking of the photographer. I hoped that, like those couples, my plus one and I would emerge from the IAH later with even an iota of that life-affirming sense of hope the best gigs, like the best weddings, provide.
We positioned ourselves not too close to the stage but not as far back as that ever-present row of greying men who, obligatorily cross-armed, attend any event where a guitar is being played as though the furthest item from their evening’s itinerary is to enjoy themselves. “It’s hard to compare when you saw the Pistols in their pomp, mate.” Still, at least they’ve bought a ticket, unlike me.
Ásgeir’s opening act for the evening was fellow compatriot and musical mononym Bríet, who delivered a short set that leaned into a sumptuous, melancholic country sound. Channeling the vocal heft of Julia Jacklin and the drawling delivery of early Lana Del Rey, her standout track was the catchy, Nashville-indebted ‘Cowboy Killer’, which merged muffled drums, delicate guitar lines and wailing harmonica.
After a short break, Ásgeir emerged from backstage with such an egoless entrance that I initially assumed he was a guitar tech coming on to tune up for the man himself. The stage had been set with twenty or so coloured lightbulbs on mic stands which, before they were switched on, looked exactly like microphones. It was initially surprising, then, to see him flanked by only two band mates. For a moment I thought we were about to get that Bulgarian choir after all.
The group emitted an understated energy, all three band members in variations of jeans, t-shirt and a baseball cap, the drummer opting for that peakless variety favoured by Radio 6 dads. The persistent popularity that this type of hat commands, despite providing little to no style or practicality, continues to confound me. Sartorial sacrilege aside, however, the band’s music soon captured the room in a way that their entrance had not.
Wielding guitars, they began with two tracks from latest album Julia that rattled along with a folky, introspective sound evoking the hushed intensity and near-conspiratorial delivery of Villagers or Bon Iver.
On the third track ‘Dreaming’, Ásgeir downed his guitar and took up position at the keys for a song that started delicately and built into a dreamy, lush, layered offering. A trajectory into more synth-laden sounds continued with ‘Sugar Clouds’: a standout track that called to mind post-Kid A Radiohead with its offbeat drum rhythm, keys both melodic and fraught with unresolved tension, and the singer’s climbing, ethereal vocals reminiscent of Thom Yorke at his finest.
The band’s entrancing brand of ‘electrofolk’ occasionally plunged rewardingly into darker, icier depths, with a couple of tunes seeing Ásgeir process his remarkable voice – usually clear and potent as vodka – through a distorting vocoder over pulsing synth lines. These futuristic-feeling compositions paired well with the almost ancient-sounding folk of other tracks and showed off the artist’s versatility. Their infectious rhythm meant even the folded-arms brigade at the back might have felt the temptation to tap a Doc Marten.
An unreleased track, leaning once again on Daft Punk or Laurie Anderson-style vocoder, had the effect of an immersive, all-encompassing sound bath. With longing lyrics about snow, mountains and ice skating, plus the cold blue of the on-stage lightbulbs, perhaps an ice bath is a more apt description. I wondered whether I should be nursing a Schnapps instead of my £8.80 pint of Red Stripe.
Charting a path between these complex, stylistically varied songs sung in both English and Icelandic, the immensely talented Ásgeir’s patter was sweet and self-effacing throughout. He and his guitarist, who interjected with the occasional quip, made an endearing duo.
Reflections between songs were decidedly un-rockstar-like or self-involved as they spoke about being in the same science class at school, how all Icelandic people claim they’re related to each other, and being each other’s musical heroes. This brought a lightness and intimacy that paired well with the forlorn longing of songs like ‘Julia’, the acoustic guitar-driven title track of Ásgeir’s latest album, which closed the set.
After a brief, single-song encore, the trio linked arms, bowed, picked up their water bottles and walked off as calmly and quietly as they had walked on – no pouting, peacocking or strutting to be seen. Theirs is music that treads that rare tightrope of being inoffensive and inclusive and yet innovative and interesting (and unlike that sentence, has almost no emphasis on the ‘I’).
This was reflected in Ásgeir’s multi-generational audience, with groups of what looked like parents and their grown-up children on both sides of us. Ásgeir feels like an artist who sits satisfyingly in a space of aural agreeability – a surefire favourite CD in the family car, someone parents would be proud of their children for enjoying, and who children wouldn’t be totally ashamed of their parents for listening to.
Reading up on Ásgeir as I rode the bus home after the gig, I learned that his 2012 debut album is the top-selling debut in Iceland of all time. This is a podium topped in the UK by James Blunt. What this tells us about the average Icelandic person’s musical taste versus their British counterpart is perhaps a sociological study for another time.
I couldn’t help thinking though, as my bus crawled through the dark streets of North London, that – peakless caps aside – Ásgeir and his band were, to borrow a song title from James Blunt himself, Three Wise Men indeed.