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Retro Stefson – for take away, please

While we are waiting for the next Iceland Airwaves shows to start, here’s a nice new video of Retro Stefson, courtesy of the Blogotheque. Enjoy!

The SONIC ICELAND AIRWAVES blog – day 1

Waves
Image by Tomz/Iceland Airwaves

Hi all, Marcel here. I am happy to report that Sonic Iceland is back in Iceland for the first time since 2010, covering the mighty Iceland Airwaves festival. I am not so happy to report that I had to leave Kai behind in Berlin, work obligations kept him there. I have my girlfriend Anne accompanying me, to help out with taking photos and organising stuff, so I’m not on my own when drinking Brennivin and devouring hot dogs. Which I have already started to do. Mmmhhhh. We also missed out the Wednesday, unfortunately.

Flight
Image by – ta-daaa – Kai

After meeting in London we boarded a nice, orange and white-aluminium bus with wings that took us to Iceland in three hours, courtesy of our partners Iceland Express. After a bumpy landing (thank you, rainstorm!) and the compulsory stocking of booze from the duty free shop we quickly acquired a rental car and drove through the bleak lava fields of the Reykjanes peninsula to Reykjavik, were we checked into our rented apartment and grabbed our festival-passes from the main festival office. We now have golden wristbands. Just saying.

Retro Unsteinn
Image by pallih / Iceland Airwaves

The first show of the evening was the performance of now-Berliners Retro Stefson, who had the huge crowd at the huge stage in the Reykjavik Arts Museum eating out of their hands. It seems songs like “Mama Angola” and “Kimba” have become huge hits, and the audience was happily dancing and singing along, and even forming conga lines. What I did found strange was main man Unsteinn referring to hands-over-the-head-clapping as “Do it the German way!”…

Next up was a quick pint in my favourite Reykjavik watering hole, Bakkus. Bakkus has expanded into the former next-door venue called “Venue” (which was shitty anyway) and now sports a second room and a stage, so it will be hard not to spend all weekend only here, especially as they run their own, not-Airwaves related music programme called “B Waves”. We watched the last songs of Sindri Eldon and the first songs of Gang Related.

We followed up with the Biogen-tribute show in what may become one of Reykavik’s best venues (again), the newly re-opened Faktorý. This palce had been know was Grand Rokk and had been closed the last time Kai and I had been here, but I was really impressed by the first-floor-stage and the good sound, which befits the fact that most of the festivals electro-acts will play here. The place is not big, so I really want to see what it looks like when James Murphy plays here tomorrow. In Faktorý, we witnessed the tai-chi-like on stage-antics of Futuregrapher before succumbing to the fact that I’m old and flying tires me, so we went to have some nightcaps in the apartement and went to bed.

Today, we’ll be giving an interview to a German movie crew from Florianfilm, who are filming a documentary, and will of course see muchmore bands. Stay tuned!

The SONIC ICELAND AIRWAVES Countdown: Part II

The festival kicks off tomorrow, but even for those who cannot participate, there’s FREE MUSIC! The good guys at the Reykjavik Grapevine have again put together a free compilation with loads of participating musicians. But, quoting the guys: “Don’t rip these bands off. Their music is copyrighted and stuff. Buy their tunes, go to their shows, splurge on merch. Don’t be an ass!” Download for free here.

Music

The have also a whole minisite dedicated to the festival, fancy that!

Here’s some more music: our favourite Icelandic rock band, Reykjavik! are releasing a new album soon, which we think is hot. The cover will look like this:

'vik!

And here’s a new song, entitled “Hellbound Heart”. Enjoy!

Hellbound Heart by Reykjavík!

The SONIC ICELAND AIRWAVES Countdown: Part I

Hellyeah! We are going to Iceland again! Even though it’s only Marcel (Kai will hold the fort in Berlin, so to say) and it’s only for five days, we are nevertheless going to attend the one event that is more important than Christmas for many a young Icelanders: The Iceland Airwaves festival.

So, before we are boarding the plane on Thursday, thanks to our friends at Iceland Express, we’ll post snippets, music and alll around valid information about the festival. And also tell you where to catch Sonic Iceland’s favourite Icelandic artists live.

We’ll start with the basics:

The Reykjavik Grapevine has a special Airwaves issue, which you can read here.
The festival has a neat app, which you can get here.
Wonder who’s playing where? Wonder no longer: here’s the personal schedule planner, also (thankfully) including off-venues.

But there also has to be some music, so here’s one of our favourite singer/songwriters, Myrra Ros, with a special version of her song “Sail On” and her full schedule. Enjoy.

Sail on live for the SoundCloud acoustic sessions accompanied by the wonderful Jonas Dahl by myrra_ros