Screaming Masterpiece

The tiny, strange, and environmentally harsh Viking country of Iceland has produced some of the world's most original pop music of the past few decades, despite being inhabited by just 300,000 people. Fostered by a physical isolation from the world and temperatures that strongly encourage humans to stay inside, the nation has developed a music that tends just as much towards a light ethereality as it does jagged, experimental harshness. The soundtrack to this ironically-titled music documentary (originally called Gargandi Snilld) mixes lesser-known Icelandic acts (Bang Gang, Minuswith, Slowblow, Mugison) with ones that we can presume live inside the iPods of every other college kid (Sigur Rs, Mm, Bjrk). And while there is an unfortunate paucity of rarities by the better known acts, true discoveries abound: Mugison imagines the Kings of Convenience matched with White Hassle; Jhann Jhannsson's flotational sounds with the Kraftwerk voice trick are a joy; and you just have to hear the Apparat Organ Quartet.