Computer problems at home, work problems at work (iceblah has a day job!). One of these things is now resolved and iceblah returns. With apologies, and with news – lots of it. If I was a music festival, and I had booked a great, new, exciting band – I would be shouting about it, and being smug. There's nothing on the homepage (at time of writing!) but an email that came out this week to advertise the start of ticket sales had an extra band snuck onto the list that wasn't there before – Vampire Weekend. Good news – this is a band I first found on my first ever trip to New York at the start of this year, the album is great and they're an interesting and very welcome addition to the line-up for October. It's going to be a great 10th birthday.

And iceblah has not been totally idle. If you go here you will see that the takeover of the internet has progressed to a myspace page. If you are an Icelandic band and I haven't found you yet, I will – or feel free to add me please. And mostly courtesy of myspace type conversations and basic espionage I have the following little bits of news…

Sign, whose latest album "The Hope" is a great progression are back in the UK and Europe soon, supporting Aiden on their tour. Sign are really getting a profile in the UK now (I surprisingly found an interview with them in a free magazine whilst in a pub the other day), they hit London Islington Academy on 4th October. Sadly it looks like this tour rules them out of Airwaves, although there is a spare date on Oct 19th – but they do need to get from Hereford to Hamburg (what an album title!) in that time.

Agent Fresco, winners of the musiktilraunir commpetition this year, have a couple of new songs on their profile which are really encouraging. From the demo Ifirst heard I thought that there were many better bands in that competition – but these two sound a whole lot better. They are already confirmed for Airwaves, and I'll seek them out – especially as the live photos on the site have a lot of energy. See —>

The Motion Boys, who were brilliant at a show in London last year have a new song called "Five 2 Love", and I understand a debut album in time for Airwaves (like so many others!) which might be called "Hang On".

The mighty Reykjavik! have a new album due out this autumn. The intriguing news is that they are recording it with Reykjavik-based Australian experimentalist Ben Frost. This could be really really interesting, can't wait.

Gavin Portland have added two great new songs to their profile, "Pig Iron" and "Seven Coils", come from their forthcoming, brilliantly titled album "Hand in hand with traitors, back to back with whores". You get the picture.

Emiliana Torrinni has a new album, "Me & Armini" out in the UK on Monday (8th Sep), and a new website here. The always wonderful Mammut (pictured), and the equally wonderful

Ultra Mega Technobandið Stefán, both have released new albums in Iceland now. I can't wait to hear them. On both myspace pages there are plenty of tasters to hear (I'm listening to a song by UMTBS called "Box" right now – it makes me grin!). They sound well worth an investment, and both will be very high on the list of acts to catch at the festival.

Skakkamanage are also promising a new album for October called "All Over The Face" (again, fine work with the album naming). Two songs are available on myspace and one in particular, "Costa Bravo", sounds excellent. This album will be the follow up to "Lab Of Love" and I understand it will be produced by Orri from the truly brilliant Slowblow. This promises much.

And a quick list of other things I have found out from the myspace/iceblah site, and you can too…

– Jeff Who? said "new album in October". That's exciting! What a band!
– Benny Crespos Gang said "new stuff for airwaves".
– Reykjavik! guitarist, THE EDGE, explains partially why he is called THE EDGE. But not why it is always in capital letters.
– Skatar say "we love iceblah". Ah, people are SO kind.
– Mr B says "speldid". He would, wouldn't he.

Finally, tonight (6th September) at Organ in Reykjavik you can see Reykjavik! + Skatar + FM Belfast. How annoying is that? It will be a brilliant night. Grrrrrrrrr.