Brain Police

Brain Police is an Icelandic stoner rock band who rose to prominence in Iceland around the turn of the millennium. The band was named after the song Who Are The Brain Police? by Frank Zappa, a leading exponent of experimental rock music.

The band was formed in 1998 by Jón Björn Ríkarðsson, Gunnlaugur Lárusson and Hörður Stefánsson.The band recorded the self-produced debut "Glacier Sun" in 1999 and released the album in the fall of 2000. That same year the band recorded one song for an Icelandic film called "Óskabörn Þjóðarinnar" ("Plan-B"). That song turned out to be the last track the band recorded with their original singer. After that recording he left the band.

Brain Police began playing instrumental music for a while - auditioning singers but coming up empty. The band even quit for a few months because of increasing vocal-void-frustration. Finally, the missing piece presented itself when a friend of the band came to town. The band decided to try out this singer who didn't even live in Reykjavík, Jens Ólafsson former singer from the band Toymachine from Akureyri. 10 minutes into the rehearsal, the vocal-starved 3-piece stared at each other, grinning, knowing that their search was over. The final piece fell into place and the result was even better than they could have hoped. This was the singer the band had been waiting for.

In 2002 Brain Police released a 3 song promo-album called "Master Brain" on Grassbumper Records, which was very well received. Brain Police is currently one of Iceland's most popular bands, which they have proved by topping the charts of the most popular rock station in Iceland, with the number one song "Jacuzzi Suzy". Shortly after that, the band signed a record deal and went back into the studio to record their next full-length album. After finishing the album, the band went into a contract-limbo due to restructuring of their record company. A fair amount of legal wrangling ensued, on top of delays and setbacks in the manufacturing of the CD itself.

The second album, entitled simply "Brain Police", was released in October 2003. From that album came one more no.1 hit (Rocket Fuel) and 2 other top 10 tracks in Iceland.

Their third album, Electric Fungus, was released in October 2004 by Skífan.

Discography

*"Glacier Sun" (2000)
*"Brain Police" (2003)
*"Electric Fungus" (2004)
*"Beyond the Wasteland (2006)

External links

* [http://www.tonlist.is/Music/Artist/3742/brain_police/ Brain Police at Tonlist.is]
* [http://www.myspace.com/brainpolice Brain Police on MySpace]