“It’s this feeling that you might stumble upon something brilliant by pure chance”: Iceland Airwaves 2024

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Iceland Airwaves, artists from Reykjavík’s thriving music scene joined acts from across the globe – including Bar Italia, Magdalena Bay and Lambrini Girls.

Iceland Airwaves festival marks the unofficial start of winter in Reykjavík. It’s the radiant last dance before the city is plunged into darkness for up to 20 hours a day. Local indie rock four-piece Spacestation handed out custom matchboxes during their set to bring some light to the gloom. The ruthless Icelandic winter lends itself to a defiant kind of creativity, to moody, abrasive sounds like that of black metal band Vampíra. They opened the festival’s 25th anniversary edition with a furiously heavy set that was delightfully rough around the edges: raucous and unhinged yet tied together with some unexpectedly melodic riffs. 

It’s this feeling that you might stumble upon something brilliant by pure chance that keeps international guests returning to the festival a quarter of a century after its first 500-strong crowd gathered in a Reykjavík airport hangar to listen to Icelandic electronic band, Gusgus. Today, the festival boasts a 50/50 offering of Icelandic and international artists. It’s spread across six official inner city venues, including Reykjavík Art Museum, a Lutheran church and Iðnó, an allegedly haunted house overlooking the sea. Several off-programme locations are scattered across the city too, some of which are advertised via Facebook events like it’s 2015. 

If Vampíra offered a glimpse into the darker end of the Icelandic music spectrum, homegrown band Supersport! provided something sonically more upbeat. The chorally trained trio of vocalists ran through the lush, smooth indie pop from their new album, Allt sem hefur gerst, as frontman Bjarni Daníel explained each song’s meaning as they went; themes ran from social media memories, Britney Spears Halloween costumes and the tender confusion of father-son relationships. The band came across as deeply passionate about their local music scene, playing five shows across the festival as well as pioneering Reykjavík’s ‘house party’ movement which sees bands play gigs in the basements of houses in response to venues closing across the city to make room for hotels. 

London three-piece Mary in the Junkyard know a thing or two about the importance of preserving hyperlocal music scenes, cutting their teeth across dozens of shows at The Windmill in Brixton, an experience they credit for getting them to Iceland. Word had clearly travelled from their usual south London haunts as the queue to see them at Gaukurinn, the festival’s 300-cap dive-like bar venue, stretched halfway down the road. Vocalist Clari Freeman-Taylor’s breathy, high-pitched vocals and bassist Saya Barbaglia’s unruly, skitterish viola sections were a delight, but the band worked together best when they loosened up and leaned into shrieking over the crashing, clattering noise of their instruments.

Meanwhile, Magdalena Bay aired the dazzling interstellar pop of their buzzy 2024 concept album, Imaginal Disk. Their performance was a technicolour burst of pure joy exhibited through non-stop ecstatic motion, flashy costumes and exasperated screams. Mesmerising and immersive, multiple costume changes couldn’t break the flow of the music which was played as one long continual track. You couldn’t help but walk away feeling that they’ll be packing out even bigger venues soon.

While polished pop might have taken over some of the festival’s bigger stages, the off-programme events offered something more intimate and off the wall. Local band Mc Myasnoi, who make experimental noise in the vein of anime metal, took things to chaotic extremes at record stores 12 Tónar and Smekkleysa. With homemade costumes and backcombed hair, their ear-splitting, discordant doom sound was slow and dragged out, heavy on the reverb and accompanied by lyricless vocals released as auto-tuned screams. Their indecipherable shrieking emitted a contagious, pent-up energy.

Lambrini Girls commanded a mood of pure chaos too, but rather than wordless screams they had something loud and clear to say. Vocalist Phoebe Lunny spewed impassioned tirades against politicians, catcalling and sexual harassment in the music industry, parting the crowd to lead an anarchistic chant that turned into a wild, beer-sloshing moshpit. Here, the fearlessly noisy Brighton duo asserted their position as one of the most rousing and unmissable live acts, packing their set to the brim with stagediving, moshing and plenty of crowd interaction.

This main stage zeal was only matched by Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul, whose eccentric electro-pop was intoxicating and full of character. Performing the last show of their mammoth 2024 tour, the duo’s electro-clash-inspired sound fizzed with joy; sweaty, strobe-lit and synth-heavy. They closed their set by inviting three crowd members to dance atop the speakers, taking the electrifying atmosphere in the room to dizzying new heights.

This energy unfortunately didn’t carry over into Bar Italia’s much more aloof performance. Their moody, vacant act felt a little cold after the vibrancy of many other bands performing at the festival. Of course, this mystery is all part of their schtick, but it didn’t translate as well in a high-ceiled art gallery as it would have done in one of the dingy London pubs they usually frequent. That said, they were undoubtedly striking to watch; Nina Cristante spun around in circles with her eyes closed shaking a tambourine, flanked by her bandmates adding sullen vocals and sparse guitar.

Where Iceland Airwaves succeeds best is in spotlighting the true breadth and diversity of the Icelandic music scene. Frikirkjan Church formed a dreamlike backdrop for Róshildur’s synthy, falsetto dream-pop. She looked fairylike, silhouetted by ethereal blue lighting as she sang in Icelandic of friendship, womanhood and time passing. Spacestation, who make bilingual dark, moody indie with a Velvet Underground influence, were selling custom matchboxes to bring light to the darkness of the Icelandic winter. The sulky four-piece sang of hating the city where they live in a way that only people who love it deeply really can. It might be cold and dark with the most expensive beer in the world, but there is something special about Reykjavík that can be hard to put your finger on, but the world-class music showcased at Iceland Airwaves certainly has something to do with it.