Icelandic indie pop band Sigur Rós is scheduled to release a new album, entitled Valtari (which means “roller” as used during road constructions in Icelandic), at the end of May; it is expected to hit stores in the UK on May 28.

Sigur Rós.

This is the band’s sixth studio album; its previous albums and the band’s front man Jónsi’s solo project have enjoyed widespread popularity and critical acclaim.

According to Morgunblaðið, Sigur Rós are booked to play at a number of larger music festivals next summer, including the Montreal Osheaga Festival...

The overall minke whaling quota in Iceland this year is 216 animals; the season is set to start next month. The extension to apply for minke whaling permits at the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture expires on April 4.

A minke whaler. Archive photo by Páll Stefánsson.

“We have applied for permits and are preparing the boat. Our goal is to start whaling in the latter part of April,” Gunnar Bergmann Jónsson, managing director of Hrefnuveiðimenn ehf. which operates the minke whaling boat Hrafnreyður KÓ-100, told Morgunblaðið.

Gunnar’s company caught 53 minke whales last year. Only three other...

The Icelandic girl rock band Kolrassa Krókríðandi, known as Bellatrix in the UK, will reconvene for a comeback concert on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the school Myllubakkaskóli in Andrews Theatre in Keflavík, Iceland, today, April 1.

Kolrassa Krókríðandi (Bellatrix).

At the same occasion the band will celebrate its 20th anniversary; 20 years have passed since the band was founded and subsequently won the youth music talent competition Músíktilraunir in 1992, a press release states.

All of the band’s original members will perform at the concert: vocalist and violinist Elíza Ge...

Today is April Fools’ Day, a day where in many countries around the world friends and colleagues play practical jokes on each other.

The origins of April Fools’ Day are unclear but one theory is that when the calendar was moved so that the year began on January 1, instead of late March just after vernal equinox, those who continued to celebrate New Year’s in March were ridiculed.

Apparently in some countries it is bad luck to make April Fools’ jokes after midday, in which event the joker will be labeled the fool.

In Iceland there is a tradition of sending people on errands, such as to a fake...