Rising Icelandic star Elín Hall on how her homeland is leading the way in music: ‘The benefits are clear’

Elín Hall is tired of glaciers. “I don’t really think glaciers are special,” the critically acclaimed Reykjavík- based pop star and actress shrugs. “Like, it’s just something that my dad would drag me to as a kid because he’s a geophysicist. I find it extremely boring. I find it more inspiring to be on a train. There are no trains in Iceland.”

Her savage diss of millennia-old ice accumulations is in response to a question. After decades of us hearing the likes of Sigur Rós, Múm, Ólafur Arnalds and others compose slow burning, glittering, mysterious music that sounds as if hewn from the craggy, molten core of Iceland itself, are we to believe that Icelandic musicians are really as stirred to song by natural phenomena as popular perception would have it?

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter

“I don’t buy into this whole idea that Icelandic people are really inspired by nature,” responds Hall, flatly. “If you live here, you kind of stop noticing it.” Don’t even get her started on aurora borealis. “I didn’t know the Northern Lights were special until I was a teenager. I had no clue. It was just another thing in the sky.”

Here to help us reassesses our preconceptions of Icelandic pop, Elín Hall is one among a wave of exciting new young artists from Europe’s northernmost fringe taking a fresh approach to standing out in the oversaturated 21st-century music business. If there’s anything we should find inspiring about Icelanders, it’s not their great ancient ice balls or flaming magma, but the way they’ve pragmatically built a brand new ecosystem to platform and export their music abroad. Export being the lifeblood of a small country (less than 400,000 people: about the population of Stoke-on-Trent) where, whether its fish, films, football or pop songs, it has to reach abroad to thrive. 

For decades, Iceland punched way above its weight in the pop charts. From post-punk trailblazers The Sugarcubes, 40-million-selling art-pop shapeshifter (and former Sugarcubes singer) Björk and renowned post-rock glacier-serenaders Sigur Rós (whose 2005 track Hoppípolla became synonymous with natural wonderment after soundtracking ads for the BBC’s Planet Earth), Icelandic music conquered the world. Reykjavík became so cool that Blur’s Damon Albarn moved there; in 2020 he became an Icelandic citizen. 

• Nick Cave on wild swimming, sons’ deaths and why a broken world can be beautiful at the same time
• Funding cuts in music education will destroy our cultural landscape
• Cost of living crisis stopping people accessing mental health benefits of live music

But a while ago, the country’s homegrown scene started to become a victim of its own success. “What happened, 15-20 years ago, is we had a lot of predatory publishers come to Iceland and sign people into deals that they didn’t understand,” explains Hrefna Helgadóttir, Hall’s manager. “There wasn’t any infrastructure to help artists.” 

It provoked a clamour for better support. The Icelandic film and TV industry was held up as a model to imitate. Worth an estimated £150m today, it has been on its own state-bankrolled ascent in recent decades, from hip lo-fi hothouse to blockbuster go-to location for everything from Game of Thrones to Star Wars. This led to the founding and expansion of Iceland Music – an organisation on a mission to promote Icelandic music at home and away.

Its export manager Leifur Björnsson oversees among other things the Record in Iceland program, which allows anyone who records in an Icelandic studio to have 25% of their costs refunded by the Icelandic government. “The benefits of supporting export of culture are clear,” says Björnsson. “Every króna invested in initiatives like film production refunds or Record in Iceland, comes back multiple times into our economy.” 

Two years ago, Iceland’s Music Act was signed into law. “It’s still in its early days,” says Björnsson. “However, the act creates a framework for funding and supporting music projects, similar to how the film industry has benefitted from government backing.” 

It’s hard not to contrast the joined-up, outward-looking thinking Iceland is exhibiting with the barriers to success abroad being raised in the UK post-Brexit. Or the chronic lack of investment in grassroots music here, which Big Issue’s Venue Watch campaign has helped to expose.

Up-and-coming Icelandic artists to watch range from witchy dark-wave trio Kælan Mikla, a favourite of The Cure’s Robert Smith, to Anglo-Icelandic Eurovision alumnus Klemens Hannigan, who has worked with U2 and Massive Attack producer Howie B. The annual Iceland Airwaves music festival in Reykjavík continues to platform exciting new Icelandic musicians alongside rising international stars.

Hall’s first two albums of hauntingly fantastical folk-pop have made her an established hitmaker at home. As one of Iceland’s most promising young actresses, her latest film When the Light Breaks was shown at Cannes and the London Film Festival, and she’s currently starring in an acclaimed new Icelandic TV series about Vigdís Finnbogadóttir – the world’s first democratically elected female president.

She chats to Big Issue at an intriguing crossroads in her career. She’s been taking lessons in London to learn how to better write songs in English (all her music to date has been in Icelandic). It’s a humble undertaking for someone who speaks the language flawlessly, yet doesn’t want any of her craft to be lost in translation as she bids for international stardom. Elín Hall’s new album, made with global collaborators, is set for release this year.

“What ultimately drives me as an artist,” she ponders, “both as a musician and an actress, is the craft of storytelling. It’s very important to me that people understand stories in my lyrics. I think that’s the essence of what I want to be.”

Listen to Elin Hall’s music. Learn more aboutIceland Music.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. Big Issue exists to give homeless and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy of the magazine or get the app from the App Store or Google Play.