Iceland Playlist: In the Land of the Midnight Sun with the World Cafe, Of Monsters and Men, Olafur Arnalds & Sin Fang

Homer Simpson called it "a craphole of an island that looks like the moon and smells like rotten eggs."

David Dye and WXPN-FM's World Cafe went to Iceland anyway, hot on the the trail of cool sounds for it's Sense of Place series. I tagged along and did some exploring of my own. I wrote about it in today's Inquirer. You can read it here.

Here's a few paragraphs of local color that got excised from the print version of the story:

Reykjavik is a charmingly tidy and compact city full of colorful houses that look lifted from a Monopoly board, and hipsters that have meteorological reasons for wearing bushy beards and wool caps in summer. I saw my fair share at the gastropub at the KEX Hostel -  the Ace Hotel of Iceland - where ethereal-with-beats Icelandic trio Samaris and DJ Yamaho were opening the Secret Solstice festival. Plenty more will be visible, no doubt, at the All Tomorrow's Parties Iceland festival on July 10-12, whose lineup includes Neil Youngand  Philadelphia's Kurt Vile & the Violators. Details here.

The harborside honeycombed glass and steel concert hall, Harpa, is one of the principal venues for the Iceland Airwaves festival, where The Flaming Lips and The War On Drugs will play in November. Icelandic bands on that fest include Mammut, the quintet who played a ripping free show in the rain during the Independence Day celebration on June 17 during the XPN trip.

An obligatory visit must be made to the Icelandic Phallological Museum, a collection of penises ranging from hamster to sperm whale. It's the subject of a surprisingly touching Canadian documentary called The Final Member. I prowled bookstores in the most well read country in the world in search of Icelandic crime fiction, and hit pay dirt with Arnaldur Indridason, whose Detective Erlendur murder mystery Voices  is satisfyingly grim and would find favor with fans of Scandinavian noir writers Jo Nesbo and Henning Mankell.

Below, you'll find a playlist that ranges from the Led Zeppelin's Iceland inspired "Immigrant Song" to Viking metal band Skalmold to all four of the acts David Dye's World Cafe did performance interview spots with, including Of Monsters and Men, Sin Fang, Olafur Arnalds and Aristidir. Plus a whole lot of other Icelandic acts, including Bjork, Sigur Ros and Mammut. Listen up.

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