aYia appeared out of nowhere in 2016 with their stunning debut single, “Water Plant”, which quickly went viral in Iceland, and soon enough, beyond.
At the end-of-year celebration of the local scene that is the Iceland Airwaves Music Festival, they played several breathtaking live shows, hidden behind hoods and bathed in red light.
Their sound is mysterious and fluid — a spacious world full of possibility and poetry. The live set revealed there were plenty more where “Water Plant” came from, and their place as ones-to-watch in the Icelandic scene was cemented.
Instead of sating our appetite, their second single “Ruins” just made us even hungrier for more. They were one of the Icelandic acts invited to play on the big stage of the Roskilde Festival in 2017, and have also caught the eye of influential Seattle radio station KEXP.
aYia are a powerful new presence, and their debut album can’t come soon enough.
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