With just over a week to go until Iceland
Airwaves 2008 gets under way, about 60 more acts have been added to the bill
(and 2 – Hjalmar & Megas – sadly seem to be removed) and I assume now that this
is the last batch of additions – although the organisers have been known to
surprise us very late in the day, which is what us Mugison lovers now need to
rely on if he is to perform this year. But of course there is plenty to keep us busy
already.

The full list of additions is on the official site and there's too many even
for me to deal with in one post, but amongst the headlines…

Firstly, and as I told you a week or so ago, two excellent bands have now
officially been added to the line-up, the superb Jan Mayen and Gavin Portland (left).
Also on the list of familiar 'good things' added are the heavy Mordingjarnir,
keyboard-indie-rockers Who Knew, live specialists Benny Crespo's Gang and the soaring
Our Lives.

Singer-songwriter Eberg is added, his first album was great, especially the
classic "Love Your Bum". There's a whole host of Icelandic hip-hop
added at last, including the daddy of them all, Sesar A, the consistently
brilliant XXX Rottweiler and the hotly tipped 32C.

And there's the annual selection of intriguing newcomers (at least to me). If
you've ever wondered what a cross between Icelandic bands Lada Sport, Future
Future and 200,000 Naglbitar would sound like, then you need wonder no more as
Dynamo Fog feature members of all of those bands, and promise a new genre,
“rock ‘n rock” – they sound good I assure you, although you can judge how they look for yourselves over to the right. If you want creepy blues? Johnny and
The Rest. Want Icelandic prog rock? Go for Perla. Harmony heavy folk pop?
Mugsefjun. For "cheesy, fucked-up pop" go for Skurken and for a bit
of glam rock you can seek out the superb-sounding Space Vestite. And there is
the 'mystical' Steini promising Shakespearian angst in pop art form.

Amongst the newly added solo acts, I'm glad to see the usual acts from the
bedroom community gang; Valgeir Sigurdsson, Ben Frost, Nico Muhly and Sam
Amidon are all playing. The very female Mr Silla is always a pleasure, and an
act named Anonymous will always intrigue. Other than that the solo acts are mostly
either DJs, or German experimentalists such as 'electronic legend' Thomas
Fehlmann.

Finally, the are 6 more international acts added, most of which I know not much
about. The exception is the Norwegian Matias Tellez. Firstly I know the album
is called Tamias Mellez, which makes me laugh. Secondly, I know that these are
classic pop songs with energy and humour, add this to your list, close to unmissable.  Other than that, we have American beardy
outlaw types, Southside, who promise several shows during the festival – one of
which I believe will be with Lay Low. Portuguese band Mau sound fun just from
their song titles, “Cum Sexy Cum” and “Fake Booming Shit”. New York based
electronic Danes Kap10Kurt are interesting, as are Half Tiger, an electro-pop
act based in sunny Cricklewood in North-West London, but made up of Norwegians
and Icelanders as well as the London natives. And they promise fairy lights in
their live show – and that's got to be a good thing yes?

One more thing, iceblah may be naturally lazy (as you can tell by the occasional length between posts) but for the last week or so iceblah has been VERY busy interviewing lots and lots of Icelandic music types. These will start going up on here from Tuesday for the week leading up to Airwaves – thare will be more than one per day, and there is some real gold to be found I promise you. Busy busy busy xxx