#icelandic nt

[kraeki]

So I know most of you are only thinking about friendlies this international break but my national team Iceland is actually being forced to play Euro playoffs against Israel in a few days. Israel is the “home” nation for the match but Iceland refused to go there so Hungary will host on behalf of Israel. Unfortunately the Icelandic team has kind of sucked recently, but I really hope they have a rare moment of brilliance on Thursday, Israel has absolutely no business going to the Euros this summer!!

Iceland’s manager enraged Israeli media and sports personalities with this:

“UEFA takes care of all the rules in this and we are part of UEFA. If we don’t play we will be banned and risk further punishment by not playing another member nation. But if you ask me personally, I would hesitate to play Israel, as it stands now. Because of what is going on in Gaza, and because of what they have done to women, children and other innocent citizens. It shouldn’t be done, and we shouldn’t be playing this game if you ask me. But we have to play because the consequences would be so great for Iceland if we didn’t.”

I thank him for not staying silent and wish him and his team the best of luck on Thursday 🙏

[gomezgal]

[chelscait]

god only knows how they’re gonna survive the next coming month.

i’m not apart of this anymore until they play actual football x

[44hive]

english punditry is so lazy and full of bad takes it makes me hate this country even more

[ceruleanharley]

not croatia and morocco playing their opening match together and now playing their last match together we've come full circle. sounds like soulmates to me

[getting-messi]

Messi really went from this

To this💃🏾🤩🙏🏾

[ferrari-desmosedici-wwe-fc]

Iceland winning 1-0 with a wonderful goal against England in their home at Wembley 😍🥳💙❤️🇮🇸

[anytimebitchess]

So so proud of him 👏🏼💖

[kraeki]

He’s glowing

[stuckinakillingjar]

aktürkoğlu hattrick i'm calling it

[ardans]

the line up is out folks..

[ipswichtowns]

still in denial about iceland missing out on the euros again :(

[7yearsofdele]

Seems Curtis Jones has left the camp as well, I wonder if Gareth did the same thing to him that he did to Madders?

[ferrari-desmosedici-wwe-fc]

Thanks for the spectacular show Iceland!

1-4 🤩💙❤️

🇮🇸

[joemuggs]

Albums of 2023 part 2

And so, on from part 1, we continue. This is more dreamy synth-dub that sits perfectly next to the Harrow album: Richard Norris is another artist with an extraordinarily long and illustrious career but who also has never lost the exploratory urge and total delight in sonic finesse.

Honestly Uruguayan-in-Ireland Lila Tirando a Violeta is right up there with the very best of the "deconstructed club" generation - dark, gothic, complex, VERY WEIRD - and this collab with Berliner Sin Maldita is up there with her best. It's really, REALLY intense!

Just impossibly beautiful elegies from ambient harpist Mary Lattimore which builds towards the final track collaboration with Slowdive's Rachel Goswell that is so lovely it will single handedly bring back swooning as a popular pastime.

Officially an EP but there's enough here to cement Nia Archives's place as a heavyweight - add "Off Wiv Ya Headz" and that Jorja Smith remix, and she's had a humdinger of a 2023....

Saw some discourse suggesting that Burna Boy is resting on his laurels here, but I don't hear it. Maybe it's the fact that the cover looks dashed-off? But musically, this bangs: it expertly joins so many dots but keeps his voice and personality right at the heart of it.

I mean come on there was no way a collab between Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist was going to be anything but good, right? Just purest essence of deep and dreamy stoner hip hop. Yet another small (27min) but beautifully formed album - definitely a trend there.

Feels kind of (literally) sacrilegious to say I prefer Cleo Sol's more personal, less scriptural records (e.g. Rose in the Dark) - and this is, top to bottom, a gospel album - but the conviction to her performance and the whole realisation of it here is still really magical.

From Coventry via Skopje, man like NOT_MDK's first album in 23 years, and he's zooming into the deep flows that join grime and dubstep into the longer, deeper electronic funk continuum... These tracks are so crisp and crunchy!

She's from Turkey but Ahu's been plugged into the London Plastic People / NTS / etc scene for years - file this with Yazmin Lacey and similar LDN soul-jazz, also it's very Boho and vibesy and incensey, definitely one to light your best candles for.

Can't remember who put me on to this, possibly Radio 3? Anyway if cold wet misty Scottish hillsides are your jam Claire M Singer has you covered - these slower-than-slowly unfolding organ-led pieces practically smell of wet moss, and are extremely beautiful.

He's lent vocals to a who's who of electronic music, but it turns out Paul St Hilaire's own studio craft is the equal of just about any of them - this is just a stunning, ocean-deep album of dub abstraction and subtly potent lyricism.

Icelander Eva Jóhannsdóttir aka EVA808 has already made a name in the dubstep/grime world but this is her really spreading her creative wings. Mad psychedelia, elemental abstraction, movie-theme composition - there's not much she can't do. Big things beckon!

There's still SO much to say about amapiano, and so much incredible UK, SA and wider world stuff last year (this isn't even the only great DJ Maphorisa album - he had THREE out in 2023, including a mini album with Shino Kikai and a 25-track one with fellow originator Kabza De Small!!). Suffice to say this has gorgeous songs, primal grooves, endlessly sophisticated mixdowns and bass that'll take your breath away.

Just gonna link to my review for this one (it's got the music embedded) - but TL;DR Darren J Cunningham aka Actress is the holy prophet of the era of enshittification, yet for all that his music is constantly "off" and made for a world that is "off", he alchemises it into real gold.

Yeah I'm going to be THAT space-jazz hipster and say this is the record I wish Andre3000 (who is on it, and Carlos Niño co-produced his album) had made. It's just a more lavish, free, FUN way to cavort with the five-dimensional fractal machine elves.

Zoning in on the platonic breakbeat mathematics that underly Jersey / B'more club Chicago hip house, UK rave, trip hop etc, Bored Lord could seem arch or retro if her beats weren't so gloriously functional and bumping.

Fed up of generic records? You will never EVER find another one that sounds like IFS MA. Polish abstract slightly Autechre-y footwork / drum'n'bass with Japanese rapper MA sounding like a cyborg beat poet Taliban Trim and I.... 🤯

Every man jack and their dog are doing high bpm retro rave lately but you can trust Meemo Comma to put a fresh and uneasy twist on it. These tracks will get you proper buzzing up loud! I got to DJ for her live performance of this at Spiritland earlier in the year, hearing them on that system was a real treat.

You get a twofer with this one. Phil Kieran's ode to Belfast is gorgeous in studio form here, but he also recorded and released a version with the Ulster Orchestra that single handedly revivifies the idea of electronic music done classical style!

Two true underground troupers teaming up here - Jordan GCZ from Juju & Jordash and David "Move D" Moufang with some otherworldly good-dream ambient, deep house and space-soul jams heavy on the Fender Rhodes, fuzzy reverberation and sensually sweeping portamento.

My musical safe place for so much of this year. Brooklyn "electronic jam band" Purelink somehow burrowed into electronic music history and found the softest, happiest, warmest fur lined chamber and then invited us in. I cannot emphasise enough how LOVELY this record is.

More modular synth grooves from E Ruscha aka Secret Circuits, but no over-indulgence here and the grooves REALLY DO GROOVE. Trippy as a weasel circus and twice as funky.

Talking of trippy, here's Optimo Music's second acid-drenched entry, from the man formerly known as TB Arthur and the mighty Magda trading as Blotter Trax, it's a kind of parallel universe early 80s alt disco where everything gurgles and melts.

More from South Africa - King Mzaiza Sound via the reliably tough Parisian PSSNGR label - not 100% sure what you'd call this though it definitely has some gqom sonics, some trap drums, and some strident rap vocals... It's HARD AS NAILS is what it is.

EVEN HARDER - Nyege Nyege brought us a sampler of this (and I don't use mental health language lightly) FUCKING MENTAL shrieking, raging, solvent-huffing sound from São Paulo stewarded by the young DJ K, and it's extremely funky and scarily thrilling.

OK there we go, part three is here.....

[anytimebitchess]

Match highlights:

* most abt Ruben

Ruben bulling Bernardo.

Ruben spitting.

Ronaldo getting a yellow.

Ruben tugging up his shorts.

My brother and his friend sneaking in to the stands.

A friend of my brother’s getting on the pitch.

Ronaldo being frustrated for not being able to score 2727x

Ronaldo playing like shit for 80 minutes.

Rúnar finally woke up and was unstoppable with these saves.

Ruben falling.

Ruben slaying.

Joao Felix hair looking reddish under the Iceland sun.

Bernardo being MOTM.

Ruben bending down and shaking his ass in my direction.

Iceland’s squad called up their barbarian ancestors.

Ruben waving and smiling in my direction when he was on the bus.

Bernardo Silva is REALLY smol 🤏🏼

Vitinha too.

Pepe looking fierce.

Alfred Finnbogason plying Italian.

Rafael Leao is actually magnificent.

SIUU

Ronaldo setting a world record.