Words by

John Rogers

@brainlove

20-strong panel of experts select their Icelandic albums of 2014

It’s that time of year again, when the snow is on the ground, and everybody is getting very very listy. Kids are writing lists to Santa (or that evil child-chewing ogress or whatever the hell it is you write to here in Iceland) and every blogger and journalist is listing their favourite restaurants, moments, festivals, films, fashions and, yes, albums of 2014.

Not to be left out, the Icelandic Kraumur Awards have unveiled their shortlist for the best Icelandic records of the year. This independently funded organisation doles out support, advice, acclaim and cold, hard cash to Iceland’s best up-and-coming musicians, in aid of helping them to spread their wings in the year to come.

The award was set up in 2008 as a sub-section of the Aurora Fund, a charitable organisation that operates internationally to do excellent things like building schools in developing nations. But they like to spread the love at home in Iceland, too, so a will to help culture grow via remunerating deserving musicians led to the formation of Kraumur.

The twenty albums that were judged to be the best Icelandic releases of the year, by a panel of twenty experts, are as follows:

AdHd – AdHd 5
Anna Þorvaldsdóttir – Aerial
Ben Frost – Aurora
Börn – Börn
Grísalappalísa – Rökrétt framhald
Hekla Magnúsdóttir – Hekla
Kippi Kaninus – Temperaments
Low Roar – O
M-Band – Haust
Oyama – Coolboy
Óbó – Innhverfi
Ólöf Arnalds – Palme
Pink Street Boys – Trash From the Boys
Russian Girls – Old Stories 2
Sindri Eldon – Bitter & Resentful
Singapore Sling – The Tower of Foronicity
Skakkamanage – Sounds of Merry Making
Skúli Sverris, Anthony Burr & Yungchen Lhamo – They Hold it For Certain
Úlfur Kolka – Borgaraleg óhlýðni
Þórir Georg – Ræfill

There’ll be a winner and a couple of runners-up announced in due course, and we’ll report on that too when it happens. And if you’d like to learn more about Kraumur in the meantime, have a look here.