New video in the media-section and the new vinyl in the buy-section...!

Hey y´all! We are quite happy about a couple of things; one is that the vinyl version of Puzzle is finally available here on www.amiina.com/buy. It´s super nice! And if you buy the vinyl you will get a free download with the purchase. Just take the record out of the sleeve and pour the little download thing out...!

The other thing is that we have a brand new video out and up on our site. www.amiina.com/media to check that out! The video of SicSak was made by our good friends Pete Ohs and Andrea Sisson. The video plays with perspectives giving a live performance a different spin! There is also a short documentary explaining what the video is all about! Check it out; it´s super-duper-nice!

Love from the amiina-gang

Boston...

For some reason, and I have no idea why, these tour-blogs are always written in airplanes, either on the way to some exotic place or on the way home to Iceland...Are airplanes the best place to write a tour-blog? I don´t know. Who knows?...

We are on our way to Keflavík airport from the beautiful city of Boston, MA, where we got to spend 5 days, do a wonderful show at the Middle East Downstairs and record some live sessions for a couple of college radio stations...

It was so nice to have a couple of days "off". We worked a lot, but usually when we travel we don´t get the chance to walk around, experience the city etc. Usually we show up the same day we perform, set up and do a soundcheck, eat, play the show, sleep, and 27 hours later we are on our way back home. So like I said (wrote...) before, it was nice to see and experience some of the beautiful things that Boston has to offer...

The show at the Middle East was fun! And it was packed! Which is always, as you can imagine, very satisfying for bands (like amiina...) that perform live. And the Middle East Downstairs is such a cool venue. And the people working there are wonderful. John and Brendan, many thanks for taking good care of us....Anyways. We enjoyed ourselves immensely performing for all the people that showed up. We really hope that you guys had as much fun as we had...

To finish this up, we would like to thank Hlynur for inviting us to Boston, for driving us around and for being an overall nice person. (And the Brennivín wasn´t to bad, either...).

That´s it for now!

Peace, Love and Understanding from the amiina gang!

Jetlagged again and loving it! Australia: day 4, 5, 6, and 7...

Hello! We, the amiina-three, are now back from our all too short trip to Australia. Well, the traveling itself took a long time but when you are having fun time seems to move faster. It´s kind of like somebody decided to press the fast-forward button and all of a sudden we are back home in Iceland...

Man, we had a good time down there! After the first couple of shows, we had a couple of days off, and those two days came in handy. We got to see and experience more of Perth, and we went down to Fremantle and we finally got some time at the beach. The beach was nice. And white. And me being a white person coming from the northern part of the world, I probably looked like a walking piece of beach sand. That´s how white the sand was.

After playing a couple of sold out shows in the Octagon Theatre in UWA, we flew down to Albany to do our last show and hang out. We did some sightseeing there (man! it´s beautiful there!) and we went to a even whiter beach...

We want to go back to Australia soon! And we promise we won´t just go to Perth and Albany. An all around Australia tour is coming up soon!

To end this, I would like to thank everyone at the Perth International Arts Festival, but especially Danni, Dan, Elizabeth "Liz" Ann Power, Rod and Elke for driving us around, helping us, making videos with us and for being all around good and wonderful human beings...You are all fantastic!

Peace, Love and Understanding from a very jetlagged young man!

Maggi

After the jetlag: Day 1., 2. and 3 in Australia

We three; María, Edda and me are having a whale of a time in Perth. It´s hard not to have fun here, especially because of the sun and heat because we don´t have a lot of that back home. The temperature is around 35 and it´s sunny all the time... Getting to Australia from Iceland was voted "The hardest and longest trip in the world!" by the amiina-three. We sat in a vehicle (a car or a plane...) or at some airport for 32 hours. Or was it 30 hours? But I am not complaining, because I love traveling and I love my job. We all do. But when you don´t sleep at all in two really long flights, you do get a bit tired and stressed out. Right? That´s why I was the happiest human being in the world when we finally walked out of the Perth International Airport...

The first three days have been superb. We have already played two shows; one at the Dolphin theatre for very nice and excited school kids, and then another one last night, supporting Wildbirds and Peacedrums (http://www.wildbirdsandpeacedrums.com/). Both the shows were really good. Big thanks to everyone working at the venues and the people who are organizing the Perth International Festival. Thanks for driving us around and for giving us all that good food...

One more thing! Last night ended with a Oscar-winning performance by Dan "the stage manager" and Liz "the helpful" in a short mocumentary about my life as a traveling rock star and how hard the rock star lifestyle can be. The mocumentary will be available on DVD and Blueray soon...

Ciao!

Maggi

To and from Leuven...in three days

Hey everyone! We played in Belgium, or Leuven in Belgium to be exact on Saturday the 19th of February. And for that reason I wanted to keep you guys updated on what happens while we travel. And we tend to end up in weird and complicated adventures while we travel together...

First of all, we like Belgium. A lot. I, in particular like Belgium beer. A lot. I had a lot of Belgium beer after our two shows in Leuven...but that is another story for another time. Right?

All in all this was a really good trip. Successful trip... But we did have our fair share of problems on our way to and from Leuven. First of all Sólrún could not make it because she is too pregnant to travel. Second of all me and Kippi did a show in Den Haag the day before (on Friday 18th...) with our good friend Eiki so we did not arrive in Leuven until at 15:00 in the afternoon. And to top that, Edda and Hildur had some exams on that Friday and they did not arrive until 17:00 that beautiful Saturday afternoon. So it was straight to soundcheck for them... Obviously, it was only the 5 of us playing the show (which happened in September last year as well, us playing 5 that is...) which caused a bit of "problems". We had to change our setup a bit. And I had to perform Hemipod on metallophone for the first time in my life. And Kippi had to pick up Sólrúns harp part in Mambó (and he did an exceptional job!). Well, all of us had to pick up new parts and play them that night... But it all went well in the end! We had so much fun playing. And after all that stress to finally play a couple of sold our shows to audiences that were phenomenal, well, that´s something. More than something; great, beautiful! And the people that took care of us were super nice! Many thanks to them, especially for the very sarcastic dancer joke...

I like Belgium!

Maggi

Happy 2011!

Oops, January 25th already and we haven't even wished you all a happy 2011!! HAPPY 2011, we have a feeling it's going to be a good one :) Now... a quick update on stuff that's coming up:

- a mini show in Reykjavík (Havarí record shop) on Thursday - a short trip to Belgium in February (see "upcoming concerts" section) - a live video on the way - and a vinyl version of Puzzle is in the making. We'll post news on the development of that soon!

We'll add some more show dates soon, so stay tuned!

love, amiina

New stuff in our store and a show...

As you may already know, we have some new (and good...) stuff available in our webstore (which you can find on this page...). "Hilli (at the top of the world)", our collaboration with the late and great Lee Hazlewood, is now available on vinyl. "Animamina" is also available on vinyl (but only a few copies) and on CD and "Seoul" is also available on CD and vinyl now. To add to that, we now have some t-shirts, tea-towels, slippers and hand-made prints available. So that´s fun... We would also like everyone to know that we are playing a show the 26. of November in Reykjavík. The venue is called Þjóðleikhúskjallarinn and it is a part of the National Theatre here in town. Tickets are available in Smekkleysa record shop on Laugavegur 35...

amiina playing in Eymundsson, Reykjavík

Hæjó!Við amiinu fólk erum í svo miklu stuði að við hreinlega ákváðum að spila stutta eftirmiðdagstónleika í Eymundsson á Skólavörðustíg næstkomandi föstudag (það er víst 12. nóv) klukkan 17:00... Þar verður nýja platan til sölu og hver veit nema að það verði kannski eitthvað fleira í boði... Hlökkum til að sjá ykkur sem allra flest! ....................................................................................................... Hey there everyone! We are in such a good mood that we decided to go ahead and play a short set in the Eymundsson bookstore on Skólavörðustígur 11 at 17:00 on Friday the 12 of november.  The new album will be on sale and some other good stuff that you will see on Friday!

Hope to see you all there!

One flight and two train rides later...

We ( me, Sólrún and Siggi) just arrived in Vicenza, Italy. After a 24 hour trip. That's a long time, isn't it? The trip was tough, from Antwerp to Vicenza... but we made it in the end! But anyway, let's start from where we last left you. The Antwerp show was sold out! Veiheiii! Which was quite stressful, since it was only the five of us because Hildur had to go home after the London-show (and by the way, Hildur is fine!). But the Antwerp-show was great, terrific in fact! We enjoyed it immensely and I think the crowd liked it as well. They looked like they were having fun...A big "Shout out!" to Thomas and Stefan and Thomas' mother for taking such good care of us...

But then we got separated! Ahhhhh!

4 of us took the flight to Milano the morning after the show, while me, Sólrún and Siggi took the train to Paris and then the train from Paris to Vicenza. The night train actually. Or "The Train of the Night" like our crazy van-driver called it on the way to the Paris Bercy train station...

The night train (which will be referred to as "The Train of the Night" here after...) is definetly not as cozy as one might think. I thought it would be all lit up in starlight and moonshine. But my dream was crushed by the man in the cabin next to ours, who snored so loudly that he kept me awake for 2 hours (from 01:00 to 03:00...). But in the end we made it! And I got a bit of sleep. Sólrún and Siggi are superb travel companions, so it wasn't all bad...in fact, they are GREAT travel companions...

That's about it! If I am forgetting something, I will keep you posted.

Over and Out!

Maggi

A couple of short stories...

As you may know, we, the amiina-gang, are touring Europe. We have already played all of our shows in the U.K. and Ireland and we are on our way to Belgium as we speak, sitting in one of those Eurostar-trains (and man!, they go fast...). Anyways...

The tour officially kicked off in Dublin at the great Fringe Festival, after a couple of flights and a bit of arguing with the Aer Lingus staff. (Seriously, what is Aer Lingus´s problem?)...But! After a really good sushi-meal and a really good vegan-meal we stepped on stage. The show was great and the crowd was just fantastic! Many thanks to everyone that showed...

The morning after we took the early flight to London and then drove all the way up to Manchester. Kind of weird to fly past Manchester and the have to drive all the way back...But it all worked out quite nicely!  The crowd wasn´t big but very supportive and nice. And, although we almost skipped the encore, we ended the show on playing "Kolapot" because some of the people in the crowd were just to anxious (or something like that...) to hear some more. Which was nice!

On we went to Birmingham. Why did I not know that Birmingham is the second largest city in Englan??? Well, now I know. And now I know that people in Birmingham are supersilent at gigs (which is a good thing). And now I know that comedy-clubs are just as good for gigs, as they are for comedy-shows. Everyone at the Glee Club: Thanks!

And then there was the London show...And man!, it was hot at that club we were playing at (The XOYO club). It was probably around 40 Celsius the whole time and we sweated like there would be no tomorrow. Which made the experience, at least my experience of the show a bit more "rock n´roll" or something like that. Nevertheless, the gig was great and the crowd was wonderful! And at 00:00 it was Marías birthday!

And it´s still Marías birthday! We are celebrating that today, while we sit on the train.

That´s about it for now. Until next time; Peace, Love and Understanding!

amiina