Spacestation Makes the Case for a Louder Reykjavík
INTERVIEWS
By Serenna Zingg
6/25/26
Iceland's Spacestation seeks to reintroduce a more direct, unfiltered form of rock performance into Icelandic audiences’ seemingly unanimous fear of bashing down.
Collage by Indi Tejeda
For a city supposedly bursting with funds for the arts and creative geniuses that justify the expenditures spent on supporting their music, Reykjavík’s live scene can seem oddly lacking in charisma at times. At Iceland Airwaves, it felt that the international crowds constituted most of the positive noise pollution inside of the venues.
Rock band Spacestation seeks to confront this paradox directly, trading participation in a mainstream Icelandic scene that trends toward rap and pop for a looser, wiley approach to both instrumentation and performance. Amongst playing a stint of shows in international cities like Seattle and Austin, they also earned the best Icelandic Rock Song of 2025 Award with Í Draumalandinu - to which lead singer Björgúlfur Jes Einarsson joked, “I was kind of hoping for album of the year. It doesn’t matter, though - unless you win. Then it matters.” They sat down with me at The Great Escape in Brighton to chat about Reykjavík Syndrome (both the name of their debut album and the broader concept) and their upcoming project.
You’ve mentioned before that you want to be a rock’n’ roll band at your core. Which aspects of your approach to instrumentation represent this most directly?
Hafsteinn Jóhannsson (Guitar): The sledge-y hardcore.
Björgúlfur Jes Einarsson (Lead vocals, guitar): Guitar hacking. I mean, I’m trying to move away from that for some songs because it kind of takes a song and makes it into that. But we’ll always hold onto some of it, while of course growing in other directions as well - though a lot of people tell us that the younger generation needs an unfiltered rock n’ roll band, the new record is much more acoustic, and we have some softies there. It’s more mature and diverse.
It was kind of late in the first album when we kind of figured out that we could try things on a song and don’t just have to play it and then move on. Now, we record the basis of the song; then we go play some pianos, bongos, synths, and there's even a girls’ choir on one. We’re also doing warping and looping. That folk-y acoustic stuff is really hip right now - and it makes the songwriting speak louder.
We also have more bangers in English and fewer fillers on the new record. In August, actually, we’re going to release our first single in English. That’s a bit of a risk - we have no idea how it’s going to transfer to our Icelandic audience. I’m hopeful, though.
Honestly, our international audience seems to like our Icelandic stuff more. That’s cool and everything - but we’re also trying to move away from being "the Icelandic band."
You said in an interview that this upcoming record is going to be “punchier and faster” - it seems that it’s actually grown in a different direction from that original intent, though?
Björgúlfur: Yeah, we kind of went back on that. It’s not really faster. It’s also more purist, cream-of-the-crop compared to how we selected tracks in the last one. We recorded something like nineteen songs, and only thirteen made it to the album. It probably feels more complete because like sixty or seventy percent of the last album was just us scraping cash together to record for two days, and then waiting for a year to record again, and working with an engineer who was mixing for, like, five hundred other people. Honestly, some of the songs that we had recorded we didn’t really stand by anymore by that point.
What is something that international audiences tend to misunderstand about the modern Icelandic music scene?
Björgúlfur: The Icelandic music scene is about eighty percent hip-hop, and it’s not really being exported because they’re rapping in Icelandic and they live off of it without exporting much. I think people still have the idea of a Sugarcubes-esque, punky, scene where everyone is a genius. There are geniuses here, but for indie, there are really few bands that stand out right now.
Are there any gaps you’re trying to fill in Reykjavík’s music scene?
Hafsteinn: I think a younger rock band that comes to play a lot of live shows where there’s a full set of musicians really resonates with people. And, with our music, you gotta hear it live.
Björgúlfur: We’re definitely trying to get people back to live shows. We’ve kind of succeeded with that, but we’re also trying to get our audience to see other bands. They can’t just come and see us!
Also, people are really stiff when it comes to live concerts here. When we’re playing, I’m really trying to get them to move and come closer: I’ll say, “If you don’t move up, I won’t play the next song. We don’t bite, guys,” and they’ll be like, “Oh…okay.” Everyone here is too cool to dance.
All it takes is one person, though. There was this one guy who threw it down, and then everybody stood up from their seats. I think people were kind of thirsty for it, you know? Everyone thinks it’s cool that people in the “olden times” used to go to live shows and get crazy, but they think they “don’t live in that era anymore” or something like that.
Listening to Spacestation talk about Reykjavík’s music scene, one gets the sense that their objective extends beyond the confines of making rock music – and the frustration they describe clearly circles back not to a lack of regional talent, but to the sort of live environment that can shoot performers’ enthusiasm right back at them.
Spacestation’s answer, at least for now, is both simple and gloriously easy to replicate: turn the amplifiers up and keep threatening to stop playing if the crowd doesn’t move up toward the stage.
Listen to "Eiturgá Skóda"
