Iceland, Early May
The size of England, the population of Bromley. And 90% live in one city, Reykjavik. So we set off to the wilds and discover many an isolated church (all with harmoniums), beer made from icebergs and the cafe where the cover of John Grants’ Pale Green Ghosts was shot.

1 Airport Liquor Store/Strange cafe menu
Bjork, of course, means Birch.

2 Harmonium in a house at the Icelandic Folk Museum
Right next to the extraordinary Skogafoss waterfall. Tourism is great in Iceland. At most sites of natural beauty they put some wooden posts in the ground to denote a car park. That’s it. No toilets, wastebins (take it with you, folks!), concessions, ticket booths. Then you’re free to wander into the waterfall. Health and Safety, you say? Nei. btw, the harmonium worked perfectly, sounded great.

3 Violin Workshop, Reykjavik
A wall of violins (with a Pinocchio puppet, too) hang just out of shot in this rather lovely glass-fronted work space.

4 Dyngja guesthouse, Höfn
Höfn is on the eastern edge of Europe’s largest glacier, Vatnajökull, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have full access to Sergio Mendes records, as we discovered when the hotel owner’s son gave us the keys and pointed out this stereogram and his dad’s 70’s record collection, and left us to our own devices. Fuelled by langoustines and glacial beer we disturbed the sleep of the other occupants of the guesthouse with a hit parade consisting of Boston (“More Than A Feeling”), Arlo Guthrie, Stan Getz, America (“Horse With No Name” from History, worst album cover illustration ever), and, of course, Brasil ’66, getting us in the mood for this summer.

5 Stunning modern nautical church, Stykkishólmur, Snæfellsnes Peninsula.
Featuring an unbelievable new organ. Sadly not heard.

And finally…
back in Reykjavik, to the Mokka-Kaffi, serving espresso since 1958, and lately location to John Grant’s album cover. They’re so cool that they don’t even have a copy of the album anywhere, and our internet was patchy so we couldn’t even google a copy of it. I was rather annoyingly insisting we recreate it, so we had to wait until a table was free and rely on my flawed memory. Marcel did an excellent job getting the right feel with Hipstamatic, though.