ICELAND'S HOTTEST HOW SWEET IT IS FOR ROCK'S NEW SUGARCUBES Chicago Tribune (CT) - THURSDAY August 4, 1988 By: Peter Kobel Edition: SPORTS FINAL Section: TEMPO Page: 3 Word Count: 810 TEXT: At a time when stimulating music is coming from such distant and disparate places as Bulgaria, Brazil and South Africa, perhaps it's not surprising that one of the hottest new bands around, the Sugarcubes, hails from the tiny island nation of Iceland. Heralded in the British music press and called "the coolest band in the world" by Rolling Stone magazine, the band's United States debut album, "Life's Too Sweet," is a left-field hit that is rapidly climbing the album charts. (The group will play Cabaret Metro, 3730 N. Clark St., Aug. 11.) The Sugarcubes, or Sykurmolarnir in Icelandic, comes from an austere land of volcanoes, smoke and ice, and its neopsychedelic sound reflects the landscape. (The band's name was suggested by a friend. "There's no hidden meaning behind it," said female singer Bjork Gudmundsdottir. "So it was perfectly suited for us. It's sweet and dangerous.") The group's self-styled "blue-eyed pop" has a wide variety of moods, from haunting surrealism, sometimes chillingly effected by the banshee wailing of Bjork (band members are listed by their first names), to an everyday sort of whimsy. Songs may range from the erotic "Coldsweat" to "Deus," which questions the existence of God. On its Elektra LP, all but one brief song are sung in English. On the CD, however, there are extra songs: remixes and full-length songs in Icelandic, which lend it a more exotic air. In Iceland, of course, the band sings in its native language. Musically, the band hints at the keen precision of the early Talking Heads and the emotiveness of Jefferson Airplane. Chiming guitars allude to U2. Yet the Sugarcubes, while borrowing from the best, succeeds in creating a startlingly unique sound. Still, trying to pin down Bjork on the group's influences isn't easy. She's all over the musical map. "We have a problem; we have very different tastes," she said in fluent English. "When the band is together, if someone puts something on the stereo, someone will take it off in 5 minutes." The singer then rattles off some of her favorites: Bach, Rimsky-Korsakov, Benjamin Britten, Run-D.M.C., hip-hop music generally, the Swans, Sinead O'Connor and Ella Fitzgerald. In a recent concert at the World, a New York club, the Sugarcubes lived up to the tantalizing promise of the album. But the band, like its home country, can be icily remote. Bjork's voice conveys a sexual intensity, yet she was unmoving on stage and dressed primly, even childlike, in a long-sleeved mini, spandex bicycle shorts and high socks. Einar Orn, with whom she shares singing duties, was more energetic on stage. His clowning mocked the all-too-familiar macho posturing of rock stars. He would swing the microphone in a circle a la Roger Daltrey, then stare at it in amazement as it drooped. In punk tradition he insulted the mostly older audience for having spent good money to see the band. Asked to describe the rock scene in Iceland, Bjork said, "Everyone who writes about music in Iceland says the same thing: that we're obsessive about rock." The scene evolved fairly recently. Said Bjork, 22, who recorded her first album at age 11: "Before 1981 I would go to about three or four concerts a year. Then everyone started a band, and you could see three or four concerts a night. A new generation came on. Punk had something to do with it, although the 'new music' wasn't punk. It was just new rock. "Because the country is so small, everyone becomes involved. We go through crazes. There was a poetry craze. Three or four years ago everyone was writing poetry. "For two years there was a TV program with an hour of poetry every week, and then it just stopped." What's in now? "I don't know, maybe a media craze. Before, we only had one TV station, which was on three hours a day. Now we have two channels, which are on many hours. We have five radio stations now, and we had only one before." Making a living as a rock band isn't easy in Iceland, where, Bjork said, inflation is 120 percent a year and a cup of coffee in a cafe costs $5. Although the Sugarcubes has its own record label and produces other bands, Bjork said there are only two ways to make money with music in Iceland: advertising and traveling around the country playing hits. With so many new bands in Iceland, to what does she attribute the Sugarcubes' success? "Common sense. We don't think that becoming famous, all our problems will be solved. We take it as it is. "We don't sing about love all the time. There's nothing wrong with that, but we sing about everyday life." CAPTION: Photo: The Sugarcubes (from left) Siggi, Einar Orn, Thor, Bjork and Braggi: "Coolest band in the world."