Icona Pop On The Rooftop

“‘Scuse me, sir? We don’t allow any flash photography, out of respect for our members; we don’t want them to think there’s any paparazzi here.”

Did this guy just call me a paparazzi? Excuse me, but I’m a Private Investigative Journalist. Granted, I have no business being on the Soho House Rooftop generally, but I was there that night to cover two Swedish chicks making pop music gold. And though Soho House has been known to host the rich and famous and powerful, I looked around and saw nary a Baldwin, a Fonda, nor a Coppola, so I flared my nostrils at the gentleman and holstered my point-and-shoot. I’m really bad at picture-taking anyway. Besides, I paint pictures with words. So if Nic Cage had, in fact, been there, I would have described his hair in such vivid detail that your face would fall off. But since he wasn’t, you weren’t, and I’m a terrible “papparazzo,” please enjoy the visual remnants of their show at Santos Party House on Wednesday night, courtesy of Nicky Digital.

Photo by Nicky Digital

Now then. Icona Pop. Tall, Swedish, dressed in black. Caroline: long, wavy red hair. Aino: bowl-cut black hair. They flank opposite sides of a table covered with those DJ machines that have the buttons and knobs and lights—the ones that look like a control panel at NASA in the 60’s that Ron Howard’s weird brother is always operating in movies. The girls switch between turning the knobs and pushing the buttons and singing individually and together. It’s like a DJ set with bonus vocalists, except it’s all them. They remix their own tracks, the infectious “I Love It” and the hooky “Manners,” which many recognize sampled in the Chiddy Bang song of the same name in an “Oh, so that’s where that came from” moment. I realize I’m the only nerd dancing in the crowd, along with the two of them. Aino’s kicked off her shoes mid set so she could bounce around the performance area better. It’s a weird venue for this kind of music. There’s a semi-circle of people surrounding them about five people deep, and behind that, the rooftop pool, which everyone seems to be mindful of. The entire night, I was secretly praying someone would fall in. At the end of the set, they drop their new track “Ready for the Weekend” on us, and the crowd gets a communal premonition of the tune becoming a pre-gaming anthem for party girls everywhere.

Photo by Nicky Digital

They found me after the show to thank me for being the only nerd dancing, not knowing that I was there to interview them. We had a good laugh and I made a joke about grinding and then we got down to it.

Noisey: First of all, Fashion Week, you guys have performing at a bunch of events, right?

Aino: Yeah, like one day we had four gigs.

In one day. Like in the same part of town?

Caroline: No, we were all over the place. First, Helmut Lang, and then we went to Urban Outfitters.

Aino: And then AllSaints and the Mondrian.

And then, I hear after that, you went back to Sweden for another show?

Aino: For 22 hours.

Caroline: It was kind of chaotic, in a good way though. You get so much energy back when people are like…[Makes intense face], you know? And then we went back to the hotel and we’re like, “Okay, stay awake stay awake stay awake.”

Photo by Nicky Digital

So “Ready for the Weekend”—did you guys write it as like an anthem? Because it seems like the kind of thing that people are going shout when they bust out of work on a Friday night.
Aino: I think we’re kind of in a pop revolution right now, and we just wanted to be out there. We went to London for a year, ’cause we were really interested to learn more about the dance music scene. And when we made this song, “Ready for the Weekend,” we were really inspired by our time there, the really dirty clubs, and [Motions at me] people who grind.

Well, it’s only Tuesday, and I’m already ready for the weekend.

Aino: It’s Tuesday?!

Caroline: Oh my God.

@theringadingkid

For more photos from the Santos show, check out Nicky’s full gallery.