I love Icelandic music (did you know?) and I love books too. So imagine my delight when the postman delivered a parcel containing a book called "Project: Iceland". This is a large format, full colour book detailing the best of contemporary Iceland music, art & fashion, of which there is a lot. It even comes with a 16 track CD of tracks by bands featured in the music section of the book – including Mugison, Gus Gus, Trabant and loads more.

This book has taken some real work and dedication, it is edited by photographer Charlie Strand and is clearly a labour of love. It's a huge success – the book absolutely nails the thrilling amount of creativity of many kinds that exist in Iceland. Obviously, I am most interested in the selection of music chosen and the text that goes alongside the fabulous photography. The other sections are no less brilliant though and it does underline that the fabulous music that comes from the island is only one area of cultural output at home on a global scale.

As I said, there are some fabulous photographs in the book, and it is hard to pick out any favourites but I'll mention two. Firstly the suite of pictures from a Singapore Sling concert which I was clearly at and standing very close to the photographer. I have one picture (left) from that night uncannily similar (alright, its similar, but its not as good). Also, there are some great pictures of Trabant in all their live glory – meaning fireworks, glitter, sparkly underpants and a combination of all those things. A fabulous reminder of a band who have gone very quiet, and I suspect that they have moved on – true? A shame if so.

Finally, the book contains a fascinating conversation between the editor and Valgeir Sigurdsson which I really hope they won't mind me reproducing a very short section which is very relevant to this blog…

CS: It seems like there are a high number of exceptional bands in Iceland, given the small population. Is that really the case and if so am I right in saying there isn't the industry to support them all here?

VS: I have no statistics to compare Iceland with other places, but it seems there is a certain lack of restraint here which is really great. There is also a lack of tradition, so people just need to invent their own way of working and are not so worried about fitting into a style or something that a record company might be looking for at any given time. There is not an industry nor an audience to support all the creativity, so people look elsewhere, and recently it seems that you can reach people almost regardless of where they are in the world.

The whole conversation is fascinating, and the whole book is thoroughly recommended. You can buy it from Amazon UK on the link above, you won't regret it.