From Iceland — Sigrún Skaftadóttir's Sónar Picks

Words by

Photo by

Matthew Eisman

Sigrún is best known for spinning discs and bringing fresh house and techno to the masses, both by herself and as one half of the Kanilsnældur duo. She also runs the Affair radio show on FM Xtra every Thursday, 19:00-21:00, which was born from the feminist collective of the same name. Sigrún says it aims to get more women involved in the DJ scene and “fuck the patriarchy.”

She’s been to both Sónar Reykjavík festivals, playing at the second one, and will be damned if she misses the 2016 edition, even though it means arriving jet lagged, straight off of a plane from Japan. We called her up and asked for some of her recommendations. Here are the foreign artists she’s most interested in:

Ellen Allien
I think people have to go see her. She’s a house and techno queen from Germany, and she plays really good music and is a ridiculously cool kind of gal.

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AVAVAV (pronounced ouw-ouw-ouw)
Not many Icelanders have heard of this Danish trio—it’s two friends that went to a summer cabin together and ended up making a sweet song together, so they met up again, went on more trips, and made more great music. Their song “All Good” is guaranteed to get you in a good mood, regardless of how shitty your day has been.

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Courtesy
This artist is originally from Greenland, which is cool because you don’t usually associate Greenland with techno, but she plays really hard music. She was fantastic at Sonar Copenhagen last year, when she had just graduated from the Red Bull Music Academy, and I expect more of the same in Reykjavík.

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Angel Haze
This is one wicked artist that members of the Icelandic hip-hop scene should check out. She raps about things that I connect a lot more with than what her contemporaries talk about—it’s not just chicks and butts, and it’s definitely not first-world problems! She made one fantastic song with Kwamie, and I wish they had booked her to the festival as well.

Recondite & Rødhåd
These two techno artists will attract a lot of the people from the scene—they and Courtesy are the artists I’m the most excited to see at Sónar.

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Hudson Mohawke
I get the feeling that everyone is going to go see this electronica artist, but if not, check him out.

https://vimeo.com/128249730

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