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The Choppy Line-Up
Although I deeply respect and understand the urge to push boundaries, there is always an audience to consider. Doing something is not the same as pulling it off.
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Genre Explosion At The Art Museum
Dub reggae outfit Ojba Rasta are one of the evening’s more interesting – and fun – surprises. While they’re ostensibly pushing a sound that will always struggle for relevance in the bigger picture of contemporary music, that’s hardly the point here. The…
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Airwords: Poets Bring Voice to the Party
The Airwords event offered an interesting new angle to Airwaves ’13 by bringing, some of Iceland’s most notable writers to the party. The event was a mix of readings and music sets. Harpa Kaldalón was a comfortable and classy room for the…
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Mayhem, The Breakdown Of Law And Order
Perhaps Iceland is not ready for Yo La Tengo, or maybe Yo La Tengo is not fresh enough for the younger generation of Icelanders. Either way, those who stayed were treated to a monster of a set that will stick in their…
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Oyama Shake Harpa, Plug Pulled Due To Volume
Emerging Icelandic shoegaze stars Oyama had to stop their performance in Harpa yesterday due to being too loud for the venue. During a particularly fragile passage of classical music, their distorted noise-rock was audible through the walls of the Eldborg hall, prompting…
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Reykjavík Grapevine’s Podcast: Airwaves Friday Edition
Hurry and check out today’s fresh edition of your Grapevine Airwaves Podcast! It has it all, stories and recordings from yesterday, and expert tips on what our esteemed podcast team and its interlocutors thinks you should see today and tonight!
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Azerrad’s Report: Wednesday
Noted music writer slash Grapevine’s guest of honour Michael Azerrad goes wild at Iceland Airwaves 2013, wandering between venues, listening hard and taking notes. For his Wednesday report, he digs on Mammút and Emiliana, and has some words of advice for Retro…
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Vök Storm The Scene At Harpa
First impressions: the venue is really slick. Extremely open, good viewing angles, clean, consistent, clear sound. If we had to lose NASA to get this, well, it still sucks but we got a damn nice venue out of it. This was my…
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Sounds Of The Harbor: Yatra Arts Showcases The Gravity And Grace of Static
Harpa Kaldalón rumbled to exquisite electronic life with the opening Yatra Arts showcase. The depth of field within this group of artists is a difficult thing to wrap your head around, and to pull off back to back for six hours. However,…
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“Artistic Growth” And Homegrown Awesomeness At Harpa Silfurberg
Samaris deserve to be “fucking huge”.
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A Man Sings His Heart Out, The Dreaded Saxophone And More
Basically, I want to hear Högni and Sigga sing at each other for an hour. I’d pay good money for that.
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Grapevine & Mál og Menning Present: Michael Azerrad In Conversation
Boy, have we got a treat for you music geeks this Airwaves! The one and only Michael Azerrad, author of the genre-defining, delightfully written rock history tome Our Band Could Be Your Life (and founder/Editor-in-Chief of sputnik music review site The Talkhouse)…
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Reykjavík Grapevine’s Podcast: Airwaves Wednesday Edition!
The Reykjavík Grapevine podcast is back! And what better reason for a re-launch than the biggest music festival of the country–Iceland Airwaves! If you ever wondered how Airwaves sounds like, then this is your chance. The Grapevine podcast team, comprising of the…
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Label Nights ’13: Yatra Arts Celebrate the Noise
Celebrate the the noise, the beautiful noise! Praveer Baijal, the creative force behind Yatra Arts, recently took some time for us to discuss the past present and future of Yatra Arts. His passionate curatorial approach, continuous questioning and reinvention of experimental electronic…
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Grapevine Talks To… Vök!
Since following in the footsteps of Samaris by winning the Icelandic battle-of-the-bands competition, Vök have become an in-demand trio making moody, catchy electronic pop. We caught up with them at Kex for a chat bout their sudden rise to fame. http://vimeo.com/77544810
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Good Moon Deer Spawn Weird Improv
Guðmundur Úlfarsson is one half of Reykjavík duo Good Moon Deer. Just as they release another blast of their energizing noise online via this fancy subsite, we challenged him to put the band’s uncategorizable sound into words… Your band name is a…
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Boogie Trouble Bring Icelandic Disco Fans Out Of The Closet
For all those who think all Icelandic music has a twinkly, swooning kind of sound, the richness and variation of the local acts on display at Airwaves will come as something of a surprise. As well as metal, techno, pop, hip-hop, reggae,…
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Grapevine Talks To… Sólstafir!
We asked each band in this video interview series to pick a location that seemed personal or special to them in some way. Some chose their own homes, some their favourite bars or cafes; a practice room or much-loved record shop perhaps.…
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The Airwaves Off-Venue Rundown
Go off the grid, go crazy, save your money By R.X. Beckett As big as it is now, and getting bigger each year, Airwaves can still only contain so much. Not every band that applies gets in and tickets do sell out,…
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THESE PEOPLE WANT TO TALK TO YOU
A portable San Francisco hits Iceland Airwaves A couple of months ago, we got an email from something called “The SF Embassy,” saying they were going to bring over a rather large group of people from San Francisco, California, to lounge around…
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Airwaves Off-Venue: Italian Pianist Bruno Bavota’s Iceland Debut
As well as extra chances to catch well-known names in a relaxed daytime setting, the Iceland Airwaves off-venues can offer chances to glimpse artists on the rise. Italian composer and pianist Bruno Bavota is one such performer, making his debut in Iceland…
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Iceland Airwaves Label Nights: Babel
Árni Grétar, also known as Futuregrapher, is a leading figure in Icelandic electronic music and a big part of the Möller label. We caught up with him to discuss their takeover of the Harlem bar & venue, entitled Babel, at Iceland Airwaves…
