Words by

Lilja Jonsson

Photo by

Joana Fontinha

Independent electronic label LÍM is redefining Iceland’s underground music  

Iceland’s electronic scene may be small, but LÍM isn’t holding back. In a city with few spaces for underground music, the label is stepping up and releasing tracks you won’t hear anywhere else. Founded by DJ and producers Jóhannes (aka Lafontaine) and Atli (aka Jamesendir) — two names to be familiar with — the duo focuses on releasing music they genuinely love. “No boring shit,” as Jóhannes puts it plainly. 

LÍM is already making waves in Reykjavík and catching ears in the underground scene abroad. Atli’s track “Vöku Engill” even made it into many peak-time sets by legendary DJ Freddy K at clubs around the world.

Polar opposites 

The term “underground” typically refers to tracks living outside the mainstream — music you won’t find on the radio or topping Spotify’s charts. Thank god.  

The Icelandic word for “glue”, LÍM, was inspired by a phrase Jóhannes once heard local DJ legend Kristinn Gunnar Blöndal (KGB) say in an interview: límheili, or “glue brain.” Even their catalog numbers pay tribute to the idea: HÉILI 001, HÉILI 002, and so on.  

But before LÍM had a name, it started with a message. “I sent Atli this long Facebook message asking if he wanted to start a label,” Jóhannes laughs. “He didn’t even reply.” 

Atli missed the message, but a few weeks later they were out together when the topic came up again. “We had different approaches to music,” Atli admits. “Almost polar opposites. Jóhannes plays more straightforward, four-to-the-floor techno, while I lean more towards offbeat and groovy. But somehow, it just worked.” 

The first time Jóhannes saw Atli play was at the old Posthús in Skerjafjörður. “There were a bunch of people on the lineup,” he says, “but Atli was the only one playing stuff I really connected with.” 

Atli’s path into DJing was self-driven. “None of my friends were DJs,” he says. “I bought the cheapest controller I could find and taught myself.” His first gig ended with a spilled beer on his laptop. “The music cut out. I just left. Thought that was it,” he laughs. 

Humble beginnings 

But that wasn’t the end. One of the first to notice Atli’s potential was Árni Guðmundsson, founder of NIX Records and a longtime figure in the Reykjavík underground. 

“I saw Atli DJing a few years ago at Prikið when he was quite new to the scene,” Árni recalls. “[Prikið proprietor] Geoffrey told me I should check out this new DJ. He took me there, and I immediately thought he was the most interesting DJ I’d seen in a good while in Iceland.” 

Árni continued to support Atli’s journey after that, even recommending him to play at the first BUXUR party in 2021, one of Atli’s biggest gigs to date. “He absolutely slaps every time,” Árni said. 

Jóhannes had a similar early break, thanks to Icelandic techno pioneer Exos. “A girl in my class booked me to DJ a pre-party for a school ball. Turns out her older brother is Exos, and he was providing the equipment,” he said. “I started playing techno before the party started, just messing around, and he was like, ‘Wait, who is this kid playing my kind of music?’” 

Soon after, Exos invited him to play a DJ competition at Gaukurinn. “I came in second place, which was kind of bullshit, because I was this 16-year-old kid playing vinyl,” he laughs. Still, Exos was impressed and booked him to play one of the last parties at NASA, the beloved Reykjavík club that has since shut down. 

Making space for the weird 

Those early breaks weren’t just lucky. They were signs of something bigger taking shape. LÍM grew out of that momentum and a shared desire to create a platform for the music they found interesting and dynamic — their own. “There is so much incredible music here just sitting on hard drives,” Jóhannes claims. 

That’s where LÍM steps in. “We help finish tracks, do studio sessions, handle mixing and mastering, press vinyl, throw the parties, promote the release — everything,” Atli explains. 

For Atli, it’s been a rewarding deep dive into the world of label curation. “You release something and look back and go, ‘yeah, we did that.’” 

In Árni’s veteran opinion, he believes what they’re doing is essential. “LÍM is picking up on a sound that’s hard to find but certainly exists,” he says. “It’s not exactly techno, not your typical UK bass. It falls somewhere in between. It’s playful.” 

That playful, hard-to-place sound is something Árni explained. The word whimsical came up, and Árni agreed. “Whimsical. That hits the spot,” he said. He went on to describe that he finds Icelandic electronic music to be cold and dry, almost a melancholy feeling, but always honest. “It’s cheeky. It has personality.” 

But LÍM serves a broader mission than promoting Atli and Jóhannes’ music. It’s about making space for a sound that doesn’t always fit into neat categories but still deserves to be heard. 

So what’s next for the label? More records. More sweaty parties. Maybe another LÍM night in Vienna or somewhere unexpected. Whatever it is, it will be thoughtfully curated and definitely not boring. 

And as Árni puts it best, “If in 100 years, some archivist at the national radio finds one of the releases and thinks, ‘this sounds damn good,’ then the mission is accomplished.” 

To dive deeper into LÍM, check out their label site at limlabel.bandcamp.com and listen to Jamesendir & slummi’s latest track “Jelly Star”.