Screaming Masterpiece / O.S.T. Screaming Masterpiece / O.S.T. CD

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 R?s, M?m, Bj?rk). 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; J?hann J?hannsson's flotational sounds with the Kraftwerk voice trick are a joy; and you just have to hear the Apparat Organ Quartet.

1. Couldn't Yuo Tell 2. Blood and Peanut Butter 3. Emily's Dead to Me 4. Hide, Run Away 5. Wouldn't Mind the Sunshine 6. Parapaleejo 7. Oranges in Winter 8. If You Think I Don't Mean It 9. La, la, la 10. Richard Dawson 11. Sleep with Your Lights on 12. Bank = F Reyjar, Bruxelles, Barcelona, Reykjav K 13. I'd Ask 14. Fjarskanistan 15. Oceania 16. Hrafnagaldur/Odin's Raven Magic