The winner of last weekend’s 27th annual Icelandic Music Experience, a competition for up-and-coming bands, was Bródir Svartúlfs from Saudárkrókur in north Iceland—the first time since 1988 that a north Icelandic band claimed victory.
The band was only established six months ago. “It started out as kind of a joke. It was just me and rapper Arnar Freyr. […] Then the other guys joined us and then the band turned into what it is today. We started listening to the Fun Lovin Criminals and Faith No More and that shaped the sound a little,” keyboardist Helgi Saemundur Gudmundsson told Morgunbladid.
“We believed that we could do it while also being careful not to have our expectations too high,” Gudmundsson said, adding that he and his fellow band members are thrilled about the victory. “It is the highlight of our careers—so far.”
Gudmundsson said that Bródir Svartúlfs’s debut album is scheduled for release next fall. “We are excited about what happens next and will follow [the victory] up as much as we can with performances and such.”
In 1988 the band Jójó, also from the Skagafjördur region, won the Music Experiments and one of its members is actually the brother of bassist Jón Atli from Bródir Svartúlfs.
