Cally Spooner assembles Icelandic pop band False Tears for single 'Nah! Nah! Nah!' at Reykjavík's Sequences festival

During the 2017 Sequences festival in Reykjavík, Iceland, artist Cally Spooner initiated the creation of the pop group False Tears. The band was formed to deliver a single, catchy, autotune-laden light-R&B track called 'Nah! Nah! Nah!', aimed at making waves in France. Spooner's endeavor started with a 2016 commission from Fondation Galeries Lafayette in Paris, where professional musicians contributed to the song remotely through email. At the Mengi arts venue, twelve hopefuls auditioned for a panel that included Icelandic pop icon Unnsteinn Manúel Stefánsson, drag performer Gógó Starr, artist Ragnar Kjartansson, and Erna Ómarsdóttir from the Iceland Dance Company. Curator Margot Norton invited Spooner to the biennial festival. Contestants were chosen for their charisma rather than musical skill, leading to a final lineup of two teenage friends, a rapping drag queen, a French-Icelandic vocalist, and a Polish singer. Spooner adopted a Svengali-like role, blurring the lines between reality and performance, akin to her earlier works at New Museum in New York and Serpentine Galleries in London. She relinquished her moral and legal rights as the song's sole creator to emphasize collaboration. A music video shoot in Reykjavík was scheduled after the band’s establishment.