Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Afternoon Show with Kevin Cole, is “Poyekhali!” by the Úlfur Eldjárn from the forthcoming release, The Aristókrasía Project.
Úlfur Eldjárn - Poyekhali! (MP3)
About four months ago, KEXP premiered a song by Icelandic composer and performer Úlfur Eldjárn, also of Apparat Organ Quartet, from an upcoming project. We probably can't describe it any better now, while we're giving it away as a Song of the Day podcast, than we did back then, so here's what we said:
“Music” and “space” form an undeniable symbiosis. We use each word to describe the other all the time, yet in truth, the one cannot exist in the other. The only sound of the spheres is in our minds. But what great imaginations we have. Over the years, many sonic explorers have reached far into the cosmos for inspiration, figuratively and sometimes quite literally as did our friend, Úlfur Eldjárn, who some KEXP listeners will recognize from the experimental Icelandic electronic group Apparat Organ Quartet. On his upcoming solo outing, The Aristókrasía Project, Úlfur Eldjárn has gazed from the vantage of Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space, and reimagined not only what he saw but what a utopic future, that people thought about at the time, might have been. “Poyekhali!”, the first song from the album... is the perfect launching point for this new project. Meaning “Let’s go” in Russian, Gagarin’s battlecry of “Poyekhali!” became a local catchphrase, a call for optimistic forward thinking, which is exactly what you’ll hear in Úlfur Eldjárn’s own compositions.
Currently, no release date has been set for The Aristókrasía Project, but Úlfur Eldjárn predicts it will be available later this year, so you won't have to wait too much longer. In the meantime, check out on his website and Facebook page for more info, and listen to more songs from the forthcoming debut as he performed them live with a string quartet and live drummer during KEXP's broadcast from Kex Hostel in Reykjavik at Iceland Airwaves last year:
KEXP can never get enough of Sóley. The charming Icelandic songstress has a knack for covering a deep emotional range and some occasionally morbid subjects in the most disarming and endearing way. In fact, we've recorded her six out of the past seven years we've been covering Iceland Airwaves, and …
Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Aft…
Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Aft…
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