15 April 2010
Laughing and joshing between songs in an impressively bi-lingual manner, all was sweetness and light, and even the welcome-to-the-dark-side revelation that the body of a 10-string mandolin-type instrument was actually an armadillo shell was balanced by Ólöf's claim to be satisfied with an afterlife as a musical instrument should she step outside and be flattened by a bus.
However events opened in a slightly moody and uncertain fashion when the tall, bearded Davíð Þór Jónsson first turned off one of the few lights over the stage, and then inserted strips of card between the strings of the baby grand. Without ceremony he sat and started playing a kind of sub-Keith Jarrett solo improv, which was perfectly nice but caused Moments Of Audience Tension when he occasionally rose, almost stopped playing and plucked the piano strings or removed some of the card strips - time to clap? are things going wrong? what do we expect here? - but then, during a quiet and still moment he turned round and said 'Bless you' to someone who had sneezed, nicely breaking the mysterious spell.
His second improv segued into the introduction for Ólöf, who he then accompanied throughout; they rolled straight into her set, a tactic which worked really well, with many and various often slightly improvised delights duly unveiled, including an unamplified song discussing love (with no words, obvs), a song of serenity written on the day the krona lost 50% of its value, and a song in Japanese (how predictable). Ólöf really inhabits her songs, acting them out in a non-operatic and wholly believable way, and unlike much folk-type music these twinkly, sparkling songs never had a sense of predictability, which was really quite an achievement.
They were even kind enough to provide a mid-set interlude for bar/bog action to which they provided a gentle countrified accompaniment. Top that tonight, Plan B....
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