I'll be honest, and I don't want to diminish the art or the brilliance of a lot of Icelandic music, but I've always been a sucker for a funny band name. It is true that I heard the name "Krakk & Spaghettí" before I heard their music – but I was very ready and willing […]
Every year I try very hard not to plan too far ahead of the first band of the first night and then see what happens from there. Cryptochrome play in Hurra before it's even 8pm on the first night of Iceland Airwaves 2016 so I suggest you join me in checking out their hard to […]
Art-punk band Tófa will be a new name to a lot of people at Iceland Airwaves this year. They actually unleashed their debut record 'Fleetwood Max' right in the middle of last year's festival. That got a lot of very nice reviews, and the band will be releasing their second collection any day now. Tófa […]
It’s been a very Björky week, which is not a bad way for a week to be. On Monday I went to the Björk Digital exhibition currently at Somerset House in London, and then last night I was lucky enough to go to her show at the Royal Albert […]
Bloc Party played in Kingston last night, the latest in a very long line of impressive live acts booked by the very wonderful Banquet Records to properly liven up the local live scene. In the last year or so, off the top of my head, I've seen Suede, Frank Turner, Maximo Park, The Cribs, The […]
The excellent recordings from the KEXP shows at the KEX Hostel during Iceland Airwaves 2015 have started to get posted online. They're fantastic quality, the shows and subsequent recordings have been a very welcome addition to the festival over recent years. All those uploaded so far are linked below. The Soley and Gus Gus shows […]
Happy New Year! I finally sliced my wristbands off yesterday, and I finally managed to resolve all my internal arguments and settle on the 10 finest things I saw at Iceland Airwaves 2015. I've changed my mind several times since of course, but 8 weeks is probably long enough to make some decisions. So with […]
I just heard today the incredibly sad news that Juraj Kušnierik died last Friday, November 13th, in Reykjavik after having had a heart attack during Airwaves. The last post on his twitter feed is of the Ghostigital in-store show. Juraj was a Slovakian journalist, a great fan and supporter of Icelandic music, he also worked […]
Every year, the week after Iceland Airwaves is full of the obvious great memories, the impossibility of getting that song out of my head (this year – Sin Fang's "Walk With You") and impatience to do it all over again a year on, but it is also full of regrets. Come on, there were something […]