Iceland Archives - Backseat Mafia

Live Review plus Gallery: Vivid Festival – Sigur Rós with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the iconic Opera House shine brighter than the festival lights outside.

In a performance that transcended the boundaries of genre and expectation, Sigur Rós, in collaboration with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, delivered a night of sonic transcendence that will linger in…

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News: The ethereal Sigur Rós announce Australian Orchestral tour for 2025 with Sydney Opera House appearance at Vivid Festival added.

Icelandic band Sigur Rós have to be one of the most innovative and exciting bands around – their albums are breathtakingly beautiful sonic journeys that are both immersive and thrilling.…

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News: Icelandic ambient dream gods Sigur Rós add Australia and New Zealand to world tour as they record first studio album since 2013’s ‘Kveilkur’

The legendary Sigur Rós have announced they will be extending their 2022 world tour to Australia and New Zealand, gracing antipodean shores for the first time after five long years.…

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News: Hugar announce a new album, ‘Rift’, for January; come explore the delicate, glacial pulsing of ‘volt’

HUGAR, the Icelandic modern compositional duo of childhood friends Bergur Þórisson and Pétur Jónsson, who we last examined in these pages in regard to their arthouse film soundtrack The Vasulka…

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See: The spectacular, cellular-level abstractions accompanying the slow beauty of amiina’s ‘Beacon’

WITH music this beautiful, it’s so very good to see them back: the Icelandic quartet amiina, who’ve been away for half a decade, have returned to the fray with the…

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Album Review: BSÍ’s doubled edged ‘Sometimes depressed…but always anti-fascist’ is a dream pop delight with some serrated edges.

There are two sides to this story: Icelandic duo BSÍ have released an album of two sides in ‘Sometimes depressed…but always antifascist’. Side one – sometimes depressed – is a…

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Track: Icelandic duo BSÍ release double singles – the dreamy ‘25Lue’ and the punky ‘Dónakallalagið’. Two very different sides of the same spinning coin

From what must be a contender for the album title of the year – ‘Sometimes depressed … but always antifascist’ – Icelandic duo BSÍ have released two fantastic singles that…

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See: Eydís Evensen – ‘Wandering II’: gliding pastoralism from Icelandic composer

SONY is venturing into the world of modern composition and has set up a new imprint, XXIM Records, to issue musics from that liminal space where classical abuts ambient and…

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SEE: The beautiful visuals for Ólafur Arnalds’ ‘Woven Song’

ÓLAFUR ARNALDS is preparing for his new album, some kind of peace, to hit turntables across the world on November 6th; and he’s followed the beautiful noir of previous single-track…

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ALBUM REVIEW: Hugar – ‘Music For The Motion Picture The Vasulka Effect’: graceful ambience for art documentary

HUGAR is the exploratory Icelandic music project of Bergur Þórisson and Pétur Jónsson, a pair of talented musicians hailing from Seltjarnarnes, which rejoices in the fact it’s the smallest town…

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