FEATURE: Spotlight: Iceage — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Fryd Frydendahl

Iceage

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IN this Spotlight…

PHOTO CREDIT: Jonas Bang for Pitchfork

I am spending some time with Iceage. They formed in 2008, though I think they have risen and produced their best work this year. Since their 2011 debut, New Brigade, the band have grown in stature and impact. I will come to their new album, Seek Shelter, in a minute - as it is one of this year’s best albums. Before bringing in a couple of reviews for the album, it is worth sourcing some recent interviews. The Danish band consist Johan Surrballe Wieth, Dan Kjær Nielsen, Elias Bender Rønnenfelt, Jakob Tvilling Pless and Casper Morilla. The interviews I am sourcing from are conducted with the frontman, Elias Bender Rønnenfelt. The first interview I will bring in is from Pitchfork:

“Discussing controversies from the start of Iceage’s career, when music blogs called them out for using quasi-fascist imagery and the band curated a festival that included an act with a racist name, his body language is radically different. He huddles close to his screen, staring straight ahead, his eyes looking large and round. He pauses to gather exactly the right words when talking about the thorny topics, taking on a regretful tone. “When a lot of these allegations came out we were dumbfounded,” he says. “Now I understand that we hold a responsibility on our shoulders to make it clear what we stand for.”

You’re very interested in the idea that beauty can emerge from something that is not classically beautiful, or even something grotesque. Is the work you do with Iceage a form of sublimation?

There’s definitely an interest in taking things and turning them on their heads—that something seemingly beautiful can be degraded to something quite low or even pathetic, or something that’s quite lost and damaged can be glorious in itself. While I wouldn’t call our music overly complicated, it plays with the two-sidedness of a lot of feelings.

Do you think that interest in the uglier side of society informed the drawings you did as a teenager that surfaced in 2011, which some considered to be fascist and racist?

What some people took from it was not our intent. I hope that it’s very clear, and I think it is for anybody who has followed us, that we are most definitely not right wing and we don’t have any sympathy or leanings to that side. Very much the contrary. Back when I was like 16 and made those drawings, they were taken from an ’80s slasher flick called Roller Blade with this occult gang of rollerblading nuns wearing these hoods. And also Catholic Easter rituals that I’ve seen in National Geographic. We were interested in making this mysterious, occult, dangerous way of coming across, but when a lot of these allegations came out we were dumbfounded. We hadn’t seen that one coming ourselves. But of course we see why people would perceive it that way. And more so now I understand that we hold a responsibility on our shoulders to make it clear what we stand for. And I hope that comes across.

Around the same time those drawings came to light a decade ago, reports came out that Iceage also curated a festival that included a band called White N-word, who were known for wearing blackface and being violent. Do you remember what you were thinking when that decision was made?

Well, there’s no way of excusing this. They weren’t a band that had ever played before. They were some people that we knew were active in Antifa activism. I don’t know what the fuck their intent was with that [band name]—but I fucking deeply regret that we failed to speak up there and prevent it, and that we failed to see how fucked up and harmful having a band... I’m embarrassed to have shared a stage with a band with that name.

Are you saying you didn’t actually book the band, but just shared a bill?

No, no, we had part in curating that, and I think out of sheer ignorance and naivete—that’s not a sufficient word, because we knew that they were active in the left-wing scene. We thought that it was some kind of provocative thing that was trying to express something that was relevant, but none of that was relevant. It’s just fucking embarrassing that we let that happen. And I regret that.

What state of mind was that for Seek Shelter?

I have a tendency to live my life on shaky ground, and I felt like there was something in these songs that was out in a storm, but they were longing for a refuge that they didn’t possess. Shelter doesn’t have to mean a roof. It is something that you can perhaps find in other people or in yourself.

“Shelter Song” is such a huge track, and the first Iceage song to feature a choir. How did that come about?

It’s not something we thought about before, but we could hear that some of these songs were asking for it. I was also definitely surprised when the Lisboa Gospel Collective entered the studio and started singing. Because I come from such a non-technical background, and my own approach to singing is a complete trial-and-error thing, I felt a bit self-conscious or self-doubting working with people who can actually sing. And I was worried that the stuff that we’ve written would somehow not be able to translate or be understood. But of course, they understood it immediately and just started adapting into the songs from the first moment, naturally evolving into harmonies. It was a really grand thing. There was definitely that elevation of spirit”.

It is interesting reading interviews about a band who have definitely changed since their earliest years. I think that the recent interviews have been quite revealing and illuminating. When The Ringer spoke with Elias Bender Rønnenfelt, he talked about the songwriting process and the pandemic:

“But on Seek Shelter, Rønnenfelt and Iceage have changed in more than just outlook. They’ve also altered their composition. Before the new record, the band had consisted of the same four members for all of its existence—Rønnenfelt, guitarist Johan Surrballe Wieth, bassist Jakob Tvilling Pless, and drummer Dan Kjær Nielsen. (A group of teenagers sticking together for a decade-plus as they traverse the music industry is no small feat, mind you.) Seek Shelter adds a fifth person to Iceage: guitarist Casper Morilla, who Rønnenfelt says “became an integral part of these songs” immediately. The new record also enlists an outside producer for the first time in the band’s existence, as Peter Kember (better known as Sonic Boom of 1980s neo-psych gods Spacemen 3) helped shape the compositions. To hear the Iceage frontman tell it, Kember was instrumental in bringing the ideas in the band’s heads into the world. “He felt like a kindred spirit,” Rønnenfelt says.

Did you have the name set before the pandemic?

Yeah. It’s funny, really, talking to a lot of these journalists, as I do these days. A lot of them have thought it’s a record that came about within the pandemic, but things have a tendency to appear a bit Nostradamus-esque when the world changes like this. I know that there is a lot of vivid imagery on this record. I think as people, when we gather in culture, we have a way of applying these things to our immediate situation. Like when you’re heartbroken, every damn song in the world feels like it’s tailored specifically to you. It seems from people I’ve spoken to that there are things within this record that they apply to their existence the past year, through this pandemic. But the record itself knew nothing about no pandemics.

So what makes an Iceage song an Iceage song if there’s so much evolution going on?

The individuals behind it. I would say that there’s some kind of internal logic to what makes an Iceage song, but it’s one that continues to break barriers. There’s a lot of things that, at a time, would have been a complete no-go for us, but also because we perhaps weren’t quite capable of at some point.

I can’t really try and sit down and calculate a song. You just sit down, you play or you write, and it’s almost like you get visited by the ideas rather than making it up from scratch. Sometimes it feels like you’re a bit powerless in terms of direction, because you only get so many good ideas, and they have a will of their own. You’re just there to facilitate them.

What’s it like being so young and having the music industry demand so much of you?

We were such a unit, and we were so unimpressed by the whole thing, had contempt for the business more than anything, and a complete lack of trust of people. We thought that everybody was a fucking snake that was trying to get a piece of us. The great thing about being courted by the whole music world and record labels and stuff is that when you don’t want what they’re offering, you have nothing to lose. I think it’s a healthy level of contempt for the establishment. It’s a way of protecting that core of something that hasn’t really fully developed yet, before anybody can exploit it.

What will Iceage in their 30s sound like?

The most important thing to me is that Iceage will sound like anything in their 30s. I started young with this, right? I’m still doing it. In a sense, I feel like I’m just getting started. That’s a great place to find yourself, I think. As to what’s going to happen, I can barely think one step ahead. Even thinking one step ahead is this really, really dense process. I haven’t got a fucking clue. I just hope that the excitement to do this will retain itself”.

Just before getting to reviews, the final interview comes from SPIN. If you have not heard of Iceage or have gaps in your knowledge, then the interview from them is essential reading. There are a couple of questions that caught my eye:

“SPIN: With the new record, the band entered into some uncharted territory for itself. It sounds less sinister and broody; at times, even lighthearted and there are even some slow songs. Some say you guys matured, whatever that means. So where did this shift come from?

Elias Bender Rønnenfelt: Fuck knows, I guess. But you mentioned more grown-up? I kind of hate that notion. If a little light has been allowed into the music and there’s a certain vulnerability for showing a degree of compassion, I hate that that automatically means that you matured somehow – that that should somehow mean that you arrived someplace. Maybe we come from a linear line of brooding. But I don’t think because there’s an element of nurture in the music that that sentiment [means] that you arrived someplace, that you achieved some kind of final, grown-up form. I think it’s just a broadening of palette rather than being some kind of individual that feels like “Okay, well now I’m seeing some sense of clarity,” because I haven’t.

It seems like you tune into all these different headspaces for this pretty variegated album. Are there certain headspaces you’re familiar with that you revisit to fish out a certain song you have in mind?

So far, all the compositions to an album have basically been written and I know which state entering the studio, and then I’ll take out 10 days, two weeks or whatever. Maybe I’ll go to another city, maybe I’ll borrow some kind of space within Copenhagen, and I’ll just sit down with it. Sitting with your notebook, you have all your troubles, your insights, your impressions or whatever you lived since the last album came by. That’s some kind of source material.

Maybe like in a case with “Drink Rain,” I’m not some sort of freak that lurks around at night drinking from dirty rain puddles in order to get closer to a girl I like or something, but that kind of deranged character can emerge from just sitting there. So you never really know what’s going to show up, but most of it tends to be rooted in whatever your mindset has been loosely flying

Your lyrics are steeped in symbolism, and the music videos are littered with symbolism. The band has its own icon. What is the purpose of using symbols?
We have a tendency to reach toward archetypes or stories, and I think that it’s something in my making sense of mundanity, in the same sense that there is an urge to reach for those kinds of comparisons. It’s like falling in love. Falling in love is mundane. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s arbitrary; it’s common. It’s, in the grand scheme of things, of no matter whatsoever. But yet somehow, every friend I ever had – you know, like when they’re in heartache – it means everything to them. It is the single most important thing. So we want to reach to almost biblical proportions to make sense of what is in the end completely normal. With the songwriting, I make more sense of mundane emotion if I can reach towards things that aren’t mundane”.

Seek Shelter is an incredible album that has taken Iceage to new heights. I think that it will be among the most-celebrated when critics decide their best albums of the year in the winter. In their review, Pitchfork had the following to say:

“But as much as it draws on familiar influences of classic rock and Britpop, Seek Shelter is hardly the sound of a band settling into their Jools Holland years. The strobe-lit shuffle of “Vendetta” drops them in the middle of Madchester circa 1989, but the song is less an invitation to get lost on the Hacienda dancefloor than an account of the shady dealings going down in the back alley. By contrast, the spectacular “Gold City” imagines Nick Cave hanging out on E Street, outfitting its piano-powered “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” strut with impressionistic lyrics that, depending on your vantage, scan as either heartland reveries and apocalyptic premonitions.

For Iceage, Cave is not only the ideal model of a former punk nihilist turned dignified elder rock statesman, but also a useful guide in matters of faith. Beyond the gospel choir, Seek Shelter is awash in religious symbolism, which isn’t an entirely new look for a group led by a lapsed Bible student, but here the band seems more interested in veneration than subversion. As Rønnenfelt recently explained to Pitchfork, “Whether it’s religion or any kind of thinking that wants to make sense of things in a way that’s beyond the laws of the concrete—that’s a very basic human need, and I don’t think it is to be shunned.” And so “High & Hurt” stages a battle between the dirty and divine, answering gritty verses with a cloud-parting chorus that quotes the traditional hymn “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” (which was, perhaps not coincidentally, also once half-covered by Kember’s old band). “Dear Saint Cecilia” salutes the patron saint of music through another act of worship—a reverential, open-road rocker that sounds like Definitely Maybe-era Oasis jamming on the riff to Booker T. & the MGs’ “Time Is Tight.”

Seek Shelter also reaffirms Rønnenfelt’s transformation into a true romantic, one who can convey the hot-blooded rush of desire without succumbing to the sentimental aftertaste. He pirouettes through the precarious chamber pop of “Love Kills Slowly” with the confidence of a red-wine drinker dancing on white carpet and channels the 1930s jazz standard “All of Me” on “Drink Rain,” delivering its grey-skied salutations (“I drink rain/To get closer to you!”) like a goth Ray Davies. For many once-unruly rock’n’roll bands, the shift to writing love songs is a tell-tale sign of maturation (if not outright stagnation), but even at its most sophisticated, Seek Shelter retains Iceage’s restless spirit. The album closer, “The Holding Hand,” is at once its slowest and most agitated track, a seasick spiritual whose crashing riffs and sinister orchestration hit like slow-motion tidal waves. “And we row, on we go, through these murky water bodies,” Rønnenfelt sings, “Little known, little shown, just a distant call of sound.” The future is uncertain; the beyondless beckons once again”.

Rounding off, and I think it is worth dropping in the review from DIY. They were impressed by the mighty and hugely interesting Seek Shelter:

“The trajectory Iceage have followed over the course of the past decade has made for fascinating viewing: starting out as an incendiary punk outfit that sold branded knives at the merch table at their myth-making live shows, the then-teenagers from Copenhagen have matured before our eyes, and their sound along with it. Die-hard adherents to the nihilistic mayhem that came to characterise debut LP ‘New Brigade’ and follow-up ‘You’re Nothing’ might view the band’s arc since as one that’s involved a mellowing - a rounding off of sharp edges, and a gradual introduction of polish where once there was only scuzz. This fifth record, ‘Seek Shelter’, feels like a culmination of the journey they’ve been on since 2014’s ‘Plowing Into the Field of Love’. A rollercoaster ride of diverse influences, the album takes us everywhere from nods to the freewheeling indie rock of ‘90s Jesus and Mary Chain (‘Dear Saint Cecilia’) to glossy, sixties-inflected love letters (‘Drink Rain’), via handsome, string-backed introspection (‘Love Kills Slowly’) and, on the standout ‘High & Hurt’, there’s a thrilling rework at the midpoint of the classic hymn ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken?’ that imbues it with moody menace. At the centre of it all is a thoughtful, almost earnest lyrical throughline from frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt - not something many of us ever expected to hear from the band who brought us ‘New Brigade’”.

If you have not discovered the band then go and check them out and follow them on social media. I think they will reach even more people when they are able to tour their new album later in the year. Everyone should spend some time investigating…