Nordic Spotlight
The best music and music festivals in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands
Anyone who knows Icelandic music knows Vök. It’s really that simple. The band has become a staple of Iceland Airwaves‘ yearly lineups (and, of course, they’ll play again this year), and folks in the US including Stereogum, Noisey, and KEXP have sung their praises. This is all for good reason: Vök’s electropop is as propulsive as it […]
Iceland is a notoriously beautiful country. About one-third of its population lives in its metropolitan capital, Reykjavik; the rest of the country is mostly greenery, mountains, and wildlife as far as the eye can see, with really just one two-lane road connecting it all. Anyone who’s seen it in the sunlight might describe it as […]
Alter Ego by BerndsenTomorrow, Icelandic band Berndsen, fronted by magnetic namesake David Berndsen, begins its US tour (dates in the photo below) behind its just-released new album, Alter Ego. The LP is the band’s first in five years, though it’s released a small flurry of new tunes in the last two. “Alter Ego,” the new album’s […]
The Nordic Spotlight Monthly podcast for April 2018 is here! This time around, we’re looking ahead to albums being released this spring, including new ones from Iceage, Death By Unga Bunga, and more. Check it out here or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and take it with you everywhere. So Cool – Death By […]
Icelandic recording collective Bedroom Community released a dove into the sky today with this new tune from electropop trio aYia. What we know about this group isn’t much. On Facebook, they call their music “a nicely polished rock in your teacup.” On the surface, a silly statement but the more we chewed on it, the […]
Norway’s Andreyun is one of Toothfairy’s freshest talents, and now he’s exploring a new hopefully melancholic late night anthem. In his latest single he’s teamed up with Icelandic vocalist Hildur to release High For This, a sexy, bouncy, atmospheric song that fellow Norwegian producer WNDR mixed to the ultimate delight. Find your sweatheart, push play, let’s sway!
Icelandic trio CeaseTone has released the title track from their upcoming EP “Stranded”! “Stranded is about escapism and the endless need for distraction. It is something that resonates deeply within me so I had a calling to do a minimalistic and upfront song about it,” said singer, songwriter, and founding member Hafsteinn Þráinsson. “I’m not used […]
Inspired by Singapore’s skyscrapers, the ice-pop single 1 4LT1TUD3 explores the contrasting aspects of isolation and is the most personal song KRÍA has released in her career so far. The first Icelandic artist to perform at the Official after party at the Singapore Grand Prix Formula1, singer/songwriter/producer KRÍA was especially taken by the building One Altitude during […]
Today Icelandic alt-folk outfit CeaseTone blessed our digital platforms with the intimate sound of Brothers, their first song releases since their 2016 critically acclaimed (and personal favorite) debut album “Two Strangers”. A song about trying too hard to be the normal you can’t define anymore, the acoustic guitar and heartfelt lyrics in Brothers expresses the disconnecting […]
https://soundcloud.com/axelflovent/quiet-eyes-3 Iceland’s indie folk maestro Axel Flóvent has released Quiet Eyes, the title track of his second EP which is scheduled for release May 9th. The soul-tugging, heart-swelling folk-pop song pushes all our cinematic, emotional buttons and proves once again why Flóvent’s popularity is exploding worldwide following the 2015 release of his debut EP “Forest Fires”. “Quiet Eyes […]