ANCHR’s Artist of the Week: Snapped Ankles

This week’s ANCHR AOTW is going to be a short one because the band I am highlighting is somewhat mysterious. They only go by surnames, they call themselves forest people, and they perform in Ghillie suits which cover them head to toe.

Photo Credit: Tom Morley

The band I’m talking about is Snapped Ankles. They came together in 2011 when a group of friends with the same artistic head space started performing at warehouse parties in London. They have three albums under their belt with their most recent one, Forest of Your Problems, coming out just this past July. Their most played track on Spotify is “I Want My Minutes Back” and it's definitely, to me, a song that makes me bob my head. From listening to a number of their songs, I can't help but hear some Animal Collective, some Thee Oh Sees, and maybe even a hint of Jay Reatard.

I first heard of Snapped Ankles while at the Iceland Airwaves Music Festival in Reykjavik. They performed a late night set at Gaukurinn, but since I had never heard of them before, they weren't even on my radar of acts to see. That night I, and the group of friends I was there with, ended up in a basement watching Icelandic heavy metal band Une Misere. It was one of the more violent mosh pits I had ever been in and someone kept pinching the back of my arm throughout the performance. The Une Misere sweat fest was totally fine, but when looking at Iceland Airwaves Instagram stories once I got back to the Airbnb, I realized we may have made a mistake. The crowd at the Snapped Ankles show looked lit. Everyone was jumping and dancing and have a grand ol’ time. I wasn't sure what I was looking at as the band on stage looked like a bunch of bush people playing instruments.

The next day, a number of people were talking about how awesome the Snapped Ankles show was and that I missed out on one of the best sets of the weekend. I'm hoping to remedy that mistake when they open their U.S. tour here in Chicago at Empty Bottle in March, 2022. If anyone reading this is curious to see what a Snapped Ankles live show actually looks like, I hope you'll join me at the Bottle.

ANCHR's Artist of the Week: Girl in Red

Photo by Isak Jenssen

“Do you listen to girl in red?”  Yes, I’m aware that joke is dead, but I wanted to use it in this Artist of the Week post to claim victory.  The queer community tried to keep girl in red for themselves but we weren’t having it. Girl in red is for the people.  Marie Ulven is a Norwegian singer-songwriter who has been releasing music under this alias since 2018.  A number of publications have labeled her as “dream pop” but if you listen to her latest release “serotonin,” it sounds more EDM than anything to me. After my first listen, it gave me Alison Wonderland vibes. I say that to try and make the point that every year, it’s becoming more and more antediluvian to try and place bands under a single genre. Girl in red, I feel, fits into that new style of music creators; Some would call it “multi-genre” whereas I would call it “genre-less.”

We at ANCHR were fortunate to catch girl in red at the Iceland Airwaves Music Festival in Reykjavik, Iceland back in 2019.  One of the best parts of the show was that it was put on by KEXP and being live-streamed for the listeners back in Seattle but it kept slipping Ulven’s mind that the performance was being shared live and she would continuously swear during her in-between songs banter with the audience. The KEXP producers would try to get her attention to get her to stop doing that and she would then laugh and unwittingly say “shit, I forgot,” which gave her performance the same endearing relatability as her lyrics. We went into the show really digging a handful of her songs and she did not disappoint when performing them.  “We Fell In Love In October” was a personal favorite and I still can’t kick it. 

My favorite track she released in 2020 was “Midnight Love” and that bop made it onto the track list of her debut album if i could make it go quiet , which comes out April 30, 2021, giving us something to look forward to.

Pre-order if i could make it go quiet  here, and listen to “serotonin” below.

ANCHR's Artist of the Day: Hatari

Have you ever found yourself thinking, "I really wish there was an Icelandic, industrial, BDSM, performance-art band I could rock with”?  Well, look no further, ANCHR has you covered.  The anti-capitalist trio, Hatari, which consists of Matthías Haraldsson, Klemens Hannigan, and Einar Stefánsson, first captured America's attention when John Oliver featured the band on his show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.  Hatari's song “Hatrið Mun Sigra”, which translates in English to "Hate Will Prevail", won them a spot in the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest.  Things got a bit awkward though when the 2019 contest's host city was Tel Aviv, Israel, and the band has been vocal about their opposition to Israel's occupation of Palestine. Although the band finished the competition in 10th place, they've been able to grab people's attention across the globe with their spectacle-filled live performances. Myself being proof of that statement since I, being a Puerto Rican guy from the southwest side of Chicago, am still shook from their performances two months after Iceland Airwaves has concluded.  

Fireworks, Dancers, and Leather, Oh My! Hatari's live show will have you wide eyed from start to finish. I was fortunate enough to catch them in their homeland of Iceland at the Iceland Airwaves Music Festival. There, Hatari played on back to back nights with a full production show at the Reykjavik Art Museum and then closed down the festival with a stripped down, more intimate and sweaty performance at Gaukurinn, a vegan watering hole in downtown Reykjavik.  Both shows were fun and dance filled. I did not understand one single word they were saying and yet their performances were personal highlights in an already awesome, music filled festival weekend. Check out their performance of “X” at Studio 12 below, but believe me their show is truly one that has to be witnessed in person to get the full effect!

ANCHR's Artist of the Day: The Garrys

The Garrys was another band I stumbled across during my time at Iceland Airwaves this year, and I’m so glad that their description on the festival app caught my eye. “If Ed Sullivan went on a date with the Spice Girls, they would eat ice cream sandwiches and dance to the Garrys,” their description read…and who wouldn’t be intrigued by that?

I showed up to their set at Kex Hostel early and was not disappointed at all by how accurate that blurb in their bio had been. The trio of sisters hailing from Saskatoon put a dash of cheeky attitude into their perfect mix of 1950’s rock and doo-wop influence, and their sibling harmonies placed a cherry on top of their smooth style.

So far, The Garrys have released two albums— Surf Manitou in 2017 and Warm Buds in 2016 and I can’t wait to hear what they have in store next. Be sure to follow them for the latest updates, and listen to “In This Dream” and “Manitouna” below.

Thumbnail photo by Gina Brass