The Reykjavík Grapevine


Iceland Airwaves 2010

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  • Sonic Iceland Recommends

    Sonic Iceland Recommends

    Sonic Iceland is the brainchild of two bloggers, Kai and Marcel from Germany and Ireland, who – being fascinated with Icelandic music ever since – decided to spend the whole month of June this year in Iceland. We conducted loads of interviews…

  • DLX ATX AND THEN SOME!

    DLX ATX AND THEN SOME!

    There are all these nice krútt bands around, but evil also lurks in Reykjavík’s cutesy music scene. There are dark sinister bands out there, bands that play dark and sinister music. One of Grapevine’s favourite purveyors of evil are definitely DLX ATX,…

  • HumanWoman Pick Five For Airwaves

    HumanWoman Pick Five For Airwaves

    HumanWoman is an excellent new local band comprised of the lovely hairdoctor Jón Atli Jónasson (AKA Sexy Lazer) and Gísli Galdur (of Trabant, Langi Seli & Skuggarnir and many other excellent bands). They are hepcats, they know their dance music and they…

  • Amsterdam – Thursday

    Amsterdam is somewhat of a surprising venue this year. It’s the home of sleazy regulars, and reeks of beer and sweat. A place one normally never goes to, except perhaps when the crowd across the road at Bakkus is overbearing and one…

  • Reykjavík Art Museum – Thursday

    Reykjavík Art Museum – Thursday

    Photo by Hörður Sveinsson Thinking I would be late, I burst in the side door of the Reykjavík Art Museum into total emptiness. Eva from Hundreds was chilling with a cigarette, the girls from Amiina were doing their makeup and the stagehands…

  • Urban Psychedelia And Fiery Myths

    Urban Psychedelia And Fiery Myths

    Sometimes it takes a long time for bands to form. Childhood friendships, painstaking auditions and frustrating jam sessions until the perfect balance is found. For Yuni In Taxco, a five-piece band from Seattle, it happened very suddenly under the awe-inspiring force of…

  • Tjarnarbíó – Thursday

    Tjarnarbíó – Thursday

    Photo by Hvalreki Most of the people who had shown up at 19:10 for Kristín Bergsdóttir’s set at Tjarnarbíó were members of her big band. That is to say, there were about as many people in the audience as on the stage.…

  • Like Drinking A Bottle Of Cough Syrup On The Beach

    Like Drinking A Bottle Of Cough Syrup On The Beach

    Photo by Jen McManus New York rockers The Vandelles are very likely the coolest band to hit Airwaves this year. With their mix of sixties surf, psychedelia and a noise laden wall of sound they’ve hypnotized crowds with something that has been…

  • Sódóma – Thursday

    Sódóma – Thursday

    Dressed in black, white and red wearing gelled quiffs and bringing an upright black bass along, the 59’s lived up to their name. Forming a classical rockabilly band (lead singer/rhythm guitar, solo guitar, bass and drums) the 59’s told their tales about…

  • Iðnó – Thursday

    Iðnó – Thursday

    Photo by Tomasz Þór Veruson and Morgan Levy  Iðnó took a chill pill this Thursday night, with Biggibix, Klassart, Moddi, Moses Hightower, Lay Low and Seabear supplying the goods for a laid back night with a living room-type atmosphere. Given that it’s…

  • NASA – Thursday

    NASA – Thursday

    Photo by Páll Hilmarsson I have seen the pitiless black heart of Icelandic rock music and now my life is never really going to be the same again… All things considered I only have myself to blame. Spending an eternity of graft,…

  • Everyone Loves Sudden Weather Change

    Everyone Loves Sudden Weather Change

    Everyone loves Sudden Weather Change. At least everyone who loves their music sprinkled with fuckloads of guitar noise, triple harmonies and a sweet ‘90s spirit and weight that far too often seems missing from today’s music (think: Cap’n Jazz playing around with…

  • Venue – Thursday

    Venue – Thursday

    Photo by Morgan Levy At eight, the venue is as empty as one would expect at such an early hour. A shame that Original Melody are stuck with such a shitty slot, as I thought they’d climbed a wee bit higher up…

  • Faktorý – Thursday

    Faktorý – Thursday

    Photo by Hördur Sveinsson The women in the crowd were probably heart-warmed by the singer’s shirtless antics; Cities Between Us perhaps makes up for their stale, uninspired barrage of longhaired cock rock with a vigorous stage presence. Though they could have done…

  • Apótekið – Thursday

    Apótekið – Thursday

    Photo by Morgan Levy When you go to a music festival it is your ethical duty to do two things: 1) Check out unfamiliar music. 2) Dance. So, with the aim of killing two birds with one drum machine I went to…

  • Risið – Thursday

    Risið – Thursday

    Photo by Páll Hilmarsson Like a relaxing alternative programme Risið had a line-up that consisted of laid back singer songwriters and folk-pop bands this evening. How fitting that people could sit at tables and listen to the concerts while having a nice…

  • The Band That Came In From The Köld…

    The Band That Came In From The Köld…

    Ever since their debut EP ‘Til Vahallar’ was released in 1996, Sólstafir have been mainstays of the Icelandic metal community. But the release of their 2009 Album ‘Köld’ and heavy touring in Europe have seen them achieve significant success among the European…

  • Psychedelia and Madness: The Klink Experience

    Psychedelia and Madness: The Klink Experience

    Klink have the reputation for being one of Iceland’s most brutal live acts, a blistering force of metalcore. They quit for a while, but got back together in 2009. And now they’re looking to take the Klink experience to the next level…

  • Morbidity And Contempt

    Morbidity And Contempt

    The rise of Gone Postal within the Icelandic metal scene has been akin to something of a death metal juggernaut. Just one year ago I thought that these upstarts were, judging by their name, a bunch of crust-oriented politics spewing nobodies. Man…

  • For A Minor Reflection Are Comin’ To Gitcha!

    For A Minor Reflection Are Comin’ To Gitcha!

    It’s all in the name. At least in the case of For a Minor Reflection. We dare anyone to imagine what music made by a band called For a Minor Reflection would sound like, and then comparing that to band’s music. Chances…

  • Endless Dark Are Not Like The Other Bands

    Endless Dark Are Not Like The Other Bands

    Endless Dark are one of the many young Icelandic bands performing at Iceland Airwaves for the first time this year. Lots of things set them apart from your ‘typical’ Icelandic Airwaves act: they hail from tiny Snæfellsbær in the Icelandic countryside instead…

  • The Importance Of Being Indie

    The Importance Of Being Indie

    If you run an independent music enterprise, it’s probable that at some point you’ll realise you’ve become something of a geek. The music industry is vast and complicated, with so much to learn that a nights-and-weekends project can quickly become an all…

  • Bárujárn Are Just What We Were Waiting For

    Bárujárn Are Just What We Were Waiting For

    Bárujárn have been busy reinvigorating the Icelandic music scene for over two years now! This band of anarchic surf rockers that don’t at all surf (neither did Brian Wilson) somehow manage to embody everything that makes the Icelandic music scene great, while…