Lily the Kid are brother / sister duo Lilja Jónsdóttir and Snjókaldur Svarfdal. Last Autumn they released their first E.P. and then played their first ever live shows at Iceland Airwaves. That's a nice start.

Those shows received great reviews across the board, and they will be looking to follow up at their highly anticipated Sónar show next week.

I had a chat with Lilja,

Hi Lilja, where are you right now and what are you doing?

Hi! Right now I'm taking some time off, I'm in Stockholm, Sweden. Just freezing and seeing the city. It's beautiful.

Many congratulations on all the great reviews of your performances at Airwaves. Did you enjoy it?

Thank you so much! I really loved it. I love Iceland Airwaves. You're in this turmoil of trying to be on time for your own shows, trying to see your friends shows, then celebrating, and then waking up the next morning to play some more shows. All the while dragging your gear around central Reykjavik. 

And is it right that they were your first shows as Lily The Kid?

Yes, those were our first shows ever. I had the greatest people with me on stage, so I wasn't really nervous about the music sounding bad. I was mainly nervous about myself.

Next week you are playing at the Sonar Festival. How important are these international festivals like Sonar and Airwaves to an Icelandic band? Is it all about getting noticed and picked up outside of Iceland?

It does help a lot, at least in getting your name out there. It's also just really cool to be a part of something like this, because these festivals have standards about the venues. The audience is usually enthusiastic as well, so that makes it even better.  

What other acts are you hoping to catch at Sonar?

I'd love to see Kindness, Páll Ivan frá Eiðum, Sophie, Fufanu and M-Band. 

Do you have plans to release more music this year? Maybe even a full length album?

We are starting work on our next EP, we hope to release something in the spring. A full length album is something we want to start working on soon, so we'll see!

Finally – can you give some local advice for people who may be visiting Iceland and Reykjavik for the first time for Sonar?

You can only buy alcohol at Vínbúðin (and the bars), so don't buy non-alcoholic beer in Reykjavik's most expensive convenience store (this is extremely common behaviour among our visitors). Also, go to Vesturbæjarlaug swimming pool for a nice dip in the hot tubs. It does wonderful things, especially after a long night.

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Lily The Kid are playing at 8:30 on the Saturday night of Sonar in SonarHall (known normally as the Norðurljós venue inside Harpa). I definitely suggest you make an early start to your Saturday night and go see them.