GÆTI EINS VERIÐ...

In 1981 Þursaflokkurinn shifted from their original jazz rock sound to a rather new wave-orientated direction, inspired and influenced by the 1980s in which musicians abandoned the post-Romantic grandeur and pomp of the progressive rock age in favor of a rawer and more minimalistic attitude. Many of the musical instruments which made Þursaflokkurinn's music that versatile and sophisticated were in turn abandoned too: Rúnar Vilbergsson (bassoon) and Karl Sighvattson (Hammond organ) had left the band by 1981, and all further acoustic instruments vanished as well. Hence, the band merely consisted of four musicians, i.e. Þorður Árnason on guitars, Ásgeir Oskarsson on drums and the drum machine and singer Égill Ólafsson, playing and programming these typical sample keyboards of the early 80s (E-mu Emulator etc) together with bassist Tómas Tómasson.

As a prog listener you perhaps might want to stop reading by now, but I have to say that this album is interesting and not commercial at all. In fact, this album is the closest the band came to genuine jazz music, albeit set in a context in which you wouldn't expect jazz. When you listen to this album the first 10 times you cannot really concentrate on the details of the arrangements because you always think "what the hell does this band do here?". After circa the 15th listen you can actually try to appreciate the music. If you're used to the Talking Heads stuff you might get the essence earlier, but I needed quite some time. (Originally, I rated the album on the ProgArchives with a weak 3 star rating and mentioned several times that I like the orchestral 2008 versions better; at the moment both versions are on par with each other.) Gæti Eins Verið... is dark and cold, partly industrial, very 'synthetic' and therefore quite irritating, easy-going pop music mixed with strange sounds and new-wave-like rock songs. For sure no-one who needs the symphonic component in music will like this record, but it's very demanding on the rhythmic and melodic side. It's hardly a masterpiece, but I think it is much better than Genesis' efforts in their Abacab-era and sometimes is quite in similar in its mood to the late 70s works of David Bowie, Talking Heads and Peter Gabriel.

Just listen to the opener Pínulítill Karl, a quite funky piece which features great acoustic guitar and vocal improvisations to a funky, relaxed rhythm with some very interesting chord sequences. The keyboards, by means of the early 1980s, sound quite fat anyway (listen to the synthesizer bassline through a pair of good speakers), and the wonderfully produced drums never sound boring at all due to the effective use of percussion instruments. I deliberately speak of 'vocal improvisation' because this piece seems to be a group improvisation (like Genesis' Abacab song), and the text seems to be as improvised as the melodies and chords.

But let's go on with Gegnum holt og hædir which appeals with a reggae off-beat rhythm and again a nice slack rhythm, plus some ace guitar soloing by the great Þórður Árnason - he indeed found a really innovative tone which reminds me of Adrian Belew's guitar experiments on King Crimson's "Discipline" and which is as captivating as his psychedelic work on "Æri-Tobbi". In some of the stanzas the band reduce the arrangement to some high wobbly keyboard sounds and accurately performed drum fills. Odd, but pretty good! I can also recommend the 2008 live version of the song that is featured on their latest live album, with Runar Vilbergsson taking over the bass line on the bassoon. Originally, the piece was the main piece of the musical Grettir whose soundtrack included Þursaflokkurinn as the instrumental cast, accompanying several singers. The lyrics of this piece - written by Þórarinn Eldjárn who was responsible for the lyrics in "Grettir" - were also put to different music, namely a slow piano ballad (Sálmur fyrir Gullauga) which can be heard either on the bonus CD of the 30th anniversary box set or on the 2008 live DVD.

The next song Nú er heima! is probably the strangest piece on this CD, with a complex rhythm (alternating 4/4, 5/4 and 6/4 metres) and Égill Ólafsson exploring his voice in a slightly Demetrio Stratos fashion. An oriental synthesizer melody floats around in the background, Árnason provides some jazzy fills and the stomping stanzas inbetween, introduced by this spooky ein mann wails - tough stuff. Actually, I wasn't too pleased with this album when I first heard it, but by now I've got used to its strange attitude.

Serfrædingar segja... starts with the sounds of a typewriter and is a typical new wave number with a very minimalist style and some beautiful harmony vocals. For me it works out fine, especially with the unpredictably accentuated rhythm which is played confidently by Asgeir Óskarsson. Seemingly the band never played the piece as it is heard here: the 1981 live version has a different rhythm and in 2008 the piece was even combined with the drum machine rhythm of the following song, Gibbon.

The next highlight on the CD is the piece Gibbon (Hylobates) , led by the fantastic interplay of the Roland TR-808 drum machine and Óskarsson's inventive percussion work. He goes from regular time to double time, plays some really short drum solos and inserts cowbell for good measure - I cannot mention it enough! 'Hylobates' is the Latin name of the gibbon, a little monkey which probably looks as strange as the song is. The whole piece is based on a triolic drum-machine-beat on which the real drums add a somewhat arhythmic track. The vocals are again really good, the monotonous keyboards and Árnasons psychedelic electric guitars fit very well. A nice example of the darker side of the new wave music.

Fyrst var ekkert is an outstanding tune with a hypnotic drum pattern (I love the drum sound again!) to which the guitar, the keyboard and the vocals create a melody that is quite apart from any melodic structures. With additional tape delay effects and Hammond organ replacing the synths this could as well be a psychedelic rock song. At 1:30 the song changes to a major key and reaches kind of a climax, now sounding quite like the good old 70's Þursaflokkurinn, including Égill Ólafsson's spirited singing and also some short polyrhythmic passage in which the band keeps the 4/4 metre while drummer Óskarsson switches to a triolic shuffle beat.

Even drummer Asgeir Oskarsson has composed a song for the album (þögull eins og meirihluttin), deriving the text from an old cycle of poems. I especially dig that creepy Gregorian twist inbetween, for instance at 0:43. Contrary to the other pieces the band really rock in this somewhat punky song, although the live versions (one of which is featured as a video in the Progarchives) might be even superior to this version of the CD.

The ballad Vill einhver elska...? is one of the more catchy pieces on the album, a slow classically-influenced ballad. Originally I thought it actually needed a more organic arrangement, but the piercing synthesizer bass, the reasoned drum track and the slightly echoed keyboard chords are actually really haunting. Still I'm glad to have the orchestral version of 2008, too, since Égill Ólafsson (whose voice is as good today than it was in the 1980s) performs it more intensely, too. Þórður Árnason's guitar solo is again a wonderful example of spontaneous jazz-influenced elegance which you notwithstanding wouldn't identify as jazz simply because of the new wave sound which the whole record has.

But the true masterpiece is soon to follow; the band doesn't seem to have forgotten their progressive rock origins and deliver a great marching instrumental at the end of the CD, Ranimosk, clocking at 6 minutes and therefore being the longest song on this album. Bassman Tómas Tómasson shows his great accompanying skills whilst synthesizer and guitar play a gentle melody which could be taken from a Western film. After a short jazzy drum break guitar and vocals in a great falsetto style move freely on modal scales together; Óskarsson adds nice percussion and the drums go away from the normal 4/4 march rhythm to a syncopated 6/4 metre. After a reprise of the beginning the song ends again just like it had started, being the piece on the CD that gets stuck in the listener's head most.

When I listen to the CD and to the accompanying live performances on the box set's bonus CD I am really sorry that I couldn't see the band live in 1981/1982. They actually seem to have been able to give the songs a live energy which is sometimes not reproducable in the studio, and an energy which progressive rock - as we know it from the 1970s - couldn't grant any longer. Rating this album is a very difficult task for me because it is definitely no real prog album but rather a New Wave album with highly intelligent compositions and a superb production, which I really like. But perhaps it's the Icelandic language which makes this album stand out as an unique piece, maybe things would be different if the songs were sung in German, but after listening to this record after two years of being less interested in this album I was really infatuated with the compositions and the sound. Indeed this album needed time to grow on me, but when revisiting this album a 4 star rating is warrantable, albeit merely by a narrow margin. It's underrated, yes, but it doesn't attain a genuine masterpiece status, neither from my perspective, nor from the progressive rock point of view.

(But don't try to get this album as a single CD, unless you find it used somewhere. The only way to get this album is to buy the 5CD box of the band, a wonderful collection of the 4 band albums with a complete CD of bonus material and a great design: the CDs are 100% black vinyl replicas. Buy this box from Gregg Walker's or Charly Heidenreich's shop, the latter if you come from Europe.)