The unpredictable magic of Iceland Airwaves

Above, in Downtown Reykjavík where the streets are paved with rainbows, there is a rock-steady calm; below, you’ll find the underground charged with molten talent waiting to break the surface.

Iceland is a country governed by the whims of an alien landscape, where nature is at its most radiant and obliterating; where the cold, long nights and solitude create the illusion of endless time. To become an artist here is a foregone conclusion. The country, despite its sparse population, has a reputation for producing a remarkable calibre of musical talent. The story of art pop could not be told without Björk; the parameters of ambient rock music were pushed to their furthest extremes by Sigur Rós, and more recently, Laufey has reinvented the cultural imagination of contemporary pop music. These artists are a microcosm of a nation drawn to making brilliant things.

Airwaves was born in an airplane hangar in 1999. Twenty-six years later, it has carved for itself the reputation of being the north star for new music discovery. For this edition, it draws 110 artists from 20 countries performing across three days – but as its scale has broadened, the underlying ethos remains unchanged: to shine a spotlight on underground talent against the backdrop of one of the world’s most creatively vital cities.

Downtown Reykjavík is yours for the taking, with eight official venues opening its doors waiting to be plundered for new music. Among them, there is Gaukurinn, the punk attic made for sweat and shoulder-to-shoulder electric; Fríkirkjan, the ornate Lutheran church where performances feel like a communion with heaven; and the transformed Lemmy, a self-described “crazy-looking bar” and altar to rock’n’roll – which kindly offered up “the one true beer garden” of Reykjavík to be the festival’s only outdoor venue for the first time. Artists often play at multiple venues throughout Airwaves, each of their environments contribute their own magic

It's a festival that rewards risk, however; the best move is not the obvious one. If you make a plan, prepare to change it. Because as you walk from one venue to the next, whether it be through word of mouth, the current of a crowd or the sound of something spilling through the doors of a record shop, arthouse cinema - or someone’s actual apartment (take your shoes off) - you’ll find the off-venue wonders that define the true Iceland Airwaves experience. Though the festival has, by necessity, had become a corporate proposition in order to exist, its underlying spirit continues to resist formality in favour of spontaneity and community.

Last year, the twin-like Icelandic duo Amor Vincit Omnia were the talk of Reykjavík after playing at a pyjama party at the arthouse cinema Bíó Paradís. Their effervescent dance music, steeped in analogue disco as equally as it is the future-facing experimentalism of PC Music, totally ignited the kids in the audience – all unofficially, of course.

For this year’s edition, they operate from the margins in the beloved downtown record shop 12 Tónar as part of the festival's off-venue programme. With a new album on the way in February, their sound has evolved to bring their background as jazz harmonics students into sharp relief. Their energy is as irresistable as ever, and what began as a subdued atmosphere soon became alive with dancing as more people piled in to join the party. With kitsch game show style interlude music and a guest book for the audience to sign, Amor Vincit Omnia are by far one of the most fascinating new artists in Iceland right now.

It's in Iðnó, the first professional theatre in Iceland built in 1897 overlooking the Tjörnin lake, that marvaða showcase their artists. Self-described as a multi-disciplinary label and “creative nebula” championing female and non-binary talent, they curated a small taster of seven artists on their roster to kick off the festival. CYBER, a duo who had cut their teeth in the all-female Icelandic hip-hop band Daughters of Reykjavík, enchant with their world-building electronica, while Knackered – one of the most hotly talked-about artists performing this year – offers a keyhole glimpse into her mind-melting dance music.

Knackered executes her vision to the fullest at a maxed-out Gaukurinn later that weekend. Taking the DNA of rave and jungle music and weaving strange, unpredictable textures within their genetic code, her music has a way of taking you deep into your interior world through movement. The whole time, she has a thousand-watt grin on her face. She’s having the time of her life – and it’s infectious.

Alaska1867 plays the same venue on Saturday night and gestures toward a particularly European flavour of electronic music that has taken hold at the festival this year. Perhaps the most hyped Icelandic artist performing this year, the crowd is near-impenetrable at her set. Aesthetically, she sits in the same deeply online, deeply referential continuum as Airwaves bookings Babymorocco and ian. Her music can fill the floor, no doubt, but there’s also a tenderness to her music that announces Alaska1867 as an artist capable of real depth and multi-dimensionality.

Every year, Iceland Airwaves grants a local artist the Plus Award who they feel is ready to conquer the music industry overseas. I profiled RAKEL last month after she released her debut album a place to be, released through Ólafur Arnalds’ OPIA Community which seeks to strengthen the bonds between like-minded creatives in Reykjavík. Having met her the first time years ago when she performed alongside Nanna (Of Monsters and Men) for a live Best Fit session, 2025 is the year she arrives as an artist in her own right. Performing across a host of venues and days throughout the festival, her set at Fríkirkjan is near holy; the perfect conduit for the softness and intimacy laced into her music accompanied by a string quartet.

Time with headliners you could easily see in your own country should be spent sparingly, but this year, Iceland Airwaves makes it impossible to resist. Jasmine.4.t has Iðnó holding its breath with her devastating yet uplifting storytelling, advocating fiercely for trans rights and a free Palestine, making clear the risks she and her band had taken as trans people to tour; Nabeel, the much-hyped Iraqi-American shoegaze band fills the venue to the brim as the family movies of Yasir Razek’s lost motherland wash over our faces; and hip-hop disruptors Joey Valence & Brae set the Art Museum alight at a Best Fit-curated showcase, with a set which demands us to dance like no one’s watching.

Before the nights set in, the Iceland Airwaves Conference programme platforms vital conversations not only on a political and social level – including a stand-out discussion between Halla Tómasdóttir, President of Iceland and Rolling Stone's Althea Legaspi about the legacy of the Women’s Strike in Iceland and the state of gender equality on its fiftieth anniversary – but also on a cultural one. Sköpunargleðin: The Storm-Soaked Joy of Making Things is a celebration of Iceland as a country of extremes and the creativity its conditions inspired. With panel speakers including multimedia artist and producer Ísadóra Bjarkardóttir Barney, pop artist Páll Óskar, and Lilja Birgisdóttir who co-founded the art collective and perfumery Fischersund, it's one of the best attended conversations with Barney's mother Björk among its numbers. Though the panel inspired personal reflections, all roads ultimately led back to common ground: collaboration and community.

It’s the gathering of people, whether it’s to perform, speak or simply admire – which gives Iceland Airwaves its own, irreplicable magic. Apartment, airplane hangar or Art Museum, that spirit is unchanged and draws us back for the promise of brilliance, but more than anything, the promise of being together.