Icelandic Bands to Watch Meta-List

Asgeir Trausti at Neumos
Asgeir: The main reason people visit this site.

Right now everyone is caught up in year-end listmania, but a while back, there was a spate of “Ten Icelandic Bands to Watch.” They caught my eye because of my fascination with Iceland, but they stayed on my mind because there was so little overlap between them. It all started with a Pigeons and Planes feature “Icelandic Bands That You Need to Hear.”

They recommended the following:

 

 

 

 

Tilbury at KEX
Tilbury
  • Samaris
  • Tilbury
  • múm
  • Retro Stefson
  • Kiriyama Family
  • Sóley
  • Pascal Pinon
  • Amiina
  • Árstíðir
  • Bloodgroup
  • Emiliana Torrini
  • Borko
  • Ólafur Arnalds
  • Seabear
  • Sin Fang

    RetRoBot at Gaukurinn
    RetRoBot was an unexpected pleasure.
  • Ojba Rasta
  • Mammut
  • Lay Low
  • Retrobot
  • Ásgeir Trausti

I’ve been singing the praises of Ásgeir Trausti since his web page was hosted by Facebook, and my feelings on Ólafur Arnalds are also well known. Amiina and múm hardly seem like “up and comers,” but anyone who doesn’t know about them yet should find out. I saw Lay Low open for Of Monsters and Men in Seattle in 2012, saw Tilbury, Ojba Rasta, and Retrobot at Airwaves in 2012, and own albums from Tilbury and Bloodgroup. I had heard the music of every artist on the list, and on the whole could approve of their inclusion in a list called “Bands You Need to Hear.” (Although, to be brutally honest, Borko’s hit single kind of creeps me out.)

Buzzfeed List

About three weeks later, Buzzfeed weighed in with “Ten Bands from Iceland That You Should Care About.” Their list included:

  1. F.M. Belfast
  2. Seabear
  3. For a Minor Reflection
  4. Ólafur Arnalds
  5. Sykur
  6. Hjaltalín
  7. Plastik Joy
  8. Skakkamanage
  9. Borko
  10. Retro Stefson

Less than half of the list overlaps with Pigeon’s and Plane’s list. I was thrilled to see For a Minor Reflection included, and intrigued that it includes two bands I’d never heard of before (Plastik Joy and Skakkamanage) and one I’d only heard about (Sykur) but never listened to.

Remember the entire population of Iceland is about the same as the population of Colorado Springs. It should be easy to track the music scene of such a small place, but two music sites with a knack for spotting the next big thing still came up with 26 unique recommendations out of 30 while excluding punk, metal, classical, and other niche genres. And even though I agreed with their recommendations, they weren’t the same ones I would make.

Ed’s Challenge

I tweeted as much, and was instantly challenged by Ed Hancox, another fan of all things Icelandic, which spawned the following conversation:

Reykjavík! put on one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen live, their Bowen Staines directed video for “Hellbound Heart” was promoted by KEXP, and their latest record plays like like Cloud Nothings, except more intelligent and more visceral. I have no idea why they aren’t hugely famous by now. I’m also surprised that 1860, who put out my favorite folk pop albums of 2012 and 2013 haven’t gotten more attention abroad. Of course my list would include metal favorites like Sólstafir, Angist, and Kontinuum, who would all be overlooked by more pop-focused sites. I made up my list on the fly, tweeting on the bus ride to work and immediately regretted excluding Agent Fresco.

Ed’s List

Soon afterwards, Hancox’s own more carefully considered list, “The other 10 Icelandic bands you should care about,” appeared on his website.

  • Rökkurro
  • Pascal Pinon
  • Samaris
  • Sin Fang
  • Íris
  • Sóley
  • Amiina
  • Snorri Helgason
  • Mr. Silla
  • Asgeir

Although mostly limited to the mellower side of the indie/pop realm, he included a number of listings the rest of us missed. He later went on to make lists of Icelandic authors and a list of books for the  jólabókaflóð (literally, “Christmas book flood” – how can you help loving a country that has such a word?)  Several of these have ended up on my “To Be Read ASAP” list, right after Hancox’s own book, Iceland, Defrosted, which is waiting patiently on my Kindle.

So there you have it, four lists of Icelandic bands worth watching, with tangential book lists on the side. Although the creative minds behind the music overlap (Sóley and Sin Fang are also members of Seabear and so on) there is still an overwhelming amount of unusual and high quality art coming out of a very small place. Enough that the greatest similarity among the lists is the desire to include more artists. What would your list look like?

7 Comments

Got something to say?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.