Iceland Airwaves 2010. It's on. The tickets are on sale. The website is live again (but looks really, really bad – or is it just me?). And we've got some bands confirmed. I love this bit – I love how I decide that I'm going to do loads of research into these intriguing foreign bands, I'm visiting their sites, I'm downloading tracks, I'm making ipod playlists of them to get familiar. I also know that I'll get to Reykjavik in October, and when the time comes I'll be off to see Jan Mayen again, or Reykjavik! again, or Retro Stefson again. Still, it amuses may and I always find a few that I want to see if the programming allows.

I was going to do a clever little thing now where I compare some the unknown non-Icelandic acts to the more familiar Icelandic ones. What a good idea I thought, and then I paid my daily visit to the Reykjavik Grapevine site, and saw this article. Seriously, much better than I would have done it, give it a read. I will say that based on my extensive research (a couple of plays) so far that the overseas bands to make a note of are The Amplifetes (who sound absolutely brilliant), Basia Bulat and JJ – but generally, and as always, the Airwaves talent spotters have done a great job. More of that over the next few months no doubt!

The Icelanders already confirmed are all listed on the main website here – there's a reassuringly large number of them, some of the better and/or more familiar ones include Agent Fresco, Bloodgroup, Cliff Clavin, Dikta, DLX ATX, Seabear, Mínus, Pascal Pinon,
Reykjavík!, Sudden Weather Change, Sykur, Feldberg, Mugison, Hjalmar, Retro Stefson, Mammut, Bang
Gang, Ensimi and Hjaltalin. That's a whole lot of looking forward I have to do.

In case you need more help, the link below is a spotify playlist I've created – there aren't loads of these acts present on spotify, but that's possibly not a bad thing…

Iceland Airwaves 2010

I know someone who knows more acts that are yet to be announced, Irritatingly they aren't about to tell me – but there was a cheeky smile that has to be a good sign. You really should go, you should book now – that volcano is nothing to worry about, it's an exciting bonus. Iceland Airwaves is the best festival anywhere in the world. Don't take my word for it, look at this movie trailer.

"Instead of asking why Iceland is the way it is, I've started asking why aren't we more like Iceland"

"The little secret is that the musical centre of the earth is in Iceland"

Correct.