Words by

Ish Sveinsson Houle

Photo by

Petra Marita Leifsdóttir

This summer’s Nordic House concert series 

“I never know exactly what will happen, and that’s part of the fun,” Victor Shepardson tells me of his upcoming set for the PIKKNIKK concert series. Victor is one of seven artists performing in the free weekly series that has been around for over 10 years. Hosted on Sundays at 15:00, these performances in the greenhouse adjacent to the Nordic House are a staple for many and offer fascinating music alongside delicious vegan food and kombucha on tap from in-house Plantan Bistro.  

This year, as in past years, the artists on the schedule are wide-ranging and experimental; they strike genres from indie-pop to electronic, using harps, pianos, machines, vocals, field recordings and more to create their sounds. Victor, who will play on July 20, is an experimental musician and a doctoral researcher in the Intelligent Instruments Lab at the University of Iceland. He works with both software and analogue electronics and promises a PIKKNIKK set based on no-input mixing, a technique where a console is plugged into itself to create wild, rich sounds from the self-oscillation that occurs. 

The 2025 iteration of PIKKNIKK is curated by Elham Fakouri, project manager of Nordic House events and artistic programmes. PIKKNIKK’s range in genre is very intentional — “I like to have both acoustic and electronic,” Elham emphasises — but there’s also a wide range of background and experience amongst the artists. Elham herself has experienced the difficulties of entering the Icelandic scene as an artist of foreign origin, and hopes to give space for artists who may struggle to make the connections necessary to get booked in Reykjavík. This ethos has followed PIKKNIKK for years, with former curator José Luis Anderson telling the Grapevine in 2023 that their lineup was “very diverse, not only in nationalities and embracing all genders, but also when it comes to musical acts.”  

It’s electronic! 

But this year’s PIKKNIKK definitely leans electronic, with the remaining three shows featuring the aforementioned Victor, Icelandic electronic musician Tonik Ensemble, and award-winning Reykjavík-based electronic composer Francesco Fabris. Elham believes that PIKKNIKK ends up being a good space to introduce concertgoers to genres that are new to them. “Some people may have this anxiety of showing up to concerts, maybe they have this fear like, ‘I don’t know much about electronic music,’ but when they’re coming here, they just feel much safer,” she explains.  

Elham reasons that the longevity of the concert series means that the people who attend regularly may be comfortable experimenting with a genre outside their comfort zone because they know the PIKKNIKK series so well.   

Victor is also keeping in mind that some audience members might be more inexperienced with electronic music, saying, “I’m thinking a lot about presenting my music for the general audience with summer afternoon greenhouse vibes. I usually try to strike a balance between making strange, unexpected music and music anyone can appreciate.” 

But he’s not being too prescriptive about what will happen at his performance, and has a dynamic approach to it. “When I perform, I always go for a degree of uncertainty and danger,” he says, “To me, that seems like the point of live performance.” He adds, “I don’t want to perform the same music twice. I’d rather have a practice of creating possibilities than eliminating errors, and I like to let the materials explain themselves.”  

While the artists are allowed to explore and experiment, roaming free within genre and sound, there is one limitation of the Nordic House’s greenhouse. “It’s a bird sanctuary,” Elham laughs, adding, “I want to have [music] that works well for the birds.” 

Victor Shepardson will perform for the PIKKNIKK series on July 20 at 15:00, followed by two more PIKKNIKKs after that. You can learn more about the series and the upcoming shows at nordichouse.is.