The Strokkur geyser in Iceland erupts every five minutes or so, as regular as clockwork. You can trust its reliability as much as you can trust that any of Inki’s songs will hit the mark, whatever the subject matter.
And she does select interesting subjects. Last time, on ‘Islander’, her first single from the forthcoming album ‘Locally grown’, it was the people that live on islands, that leave their homeland and then come back again later, some with their tail between their legs, others as if they’d just popped round to the shops and what’s the big deal anyway? Nothing to see here.
This time she turns her attention to one that occurred to her while reading the obituary columns in Iceland’s leading newspaper, Morgunblaðið. As you do with your Skyr at the breakfast table.
So many people get so bladdered over the weekend there that Monday’s blaðið must be chock full of funeral notices with no space at all for ‘news’. If Putin had fired nukes at America you wouldn’t know about it.
Anyway, one particular memorial article struck a chord with her as it made her think of a great aunt, whom she describes as “a wonderfully colourful lady who truly walked her own path. She was born in the 1920s, married a British/Icelandic army pilot, moved with him and their kids to Africa, danced on tables when the music hit right, and famously carried a hammer in her purse – just in case someone needed one”.
You see, you can take a girl out of the land of the Vikings but you can’t take that Viking spirit out of the girl.
It appears Inki had been thinking a lot about how too much politeness and comfort rarely make people memorable. Rather, it´s those fearless, unapologetic characters that really leave their mark, for good or ill – just like that great aunt did.
So she feels a kinship with her, someone who wears herself like a badge of honour, makes her own rules, follows the unconventional way, and bears a crown of chaos.
I have to say that I never came across many shrinking violets in my time there. Perhaps it’s something in the Brennivín, who knows?
From my experience anyway Icelandic women at least are a rare breed of strong, independent characters that typically don’t need the arm of any man around them except when they choose.
So as ever with Inki there’s much to chew over. She doesn’t do bubblegum pop; you will always be presented with something to think about.
Musically, it’s a little different from what I’ve heard from her in the past. Lightly ethereal, as if we’re invited to go back in time with her and share this encounter in real time in a black and white movie set in the downtown area just off Laugavegur in Reykjavik that was the scene of some of author Arnaldur Indriðason’s more intruiging characters’ rendezvous in his wartime period novels.
In true Inki fashion there is more than one version of ‘I think we would have been friends’. Respectively, the two are suffixed ‘Version for Dawn’; ‘The other for Dusk’.
The latter was the originally recorded version then she decided to record a stripped down version (Dawn) similar to the one she’d performed at a festival at the Harpa venue earlier.
I reckon the stripped down simplicity of Dawn works well, so here it is.
Find her on:
Website: www.inkimusic.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inki.music/
Bandcamp: https://inki.bandcamp.com/
