Extreme Chill Festival

05/09/2026

Í kvöld !!! Abul Mogard - Helgi Pétursson - Rm Hendrix & Nico Guerrero - Extreme Chill Festival 2026

Abul Mogard is the alter ego of Italian musician Guido Zen, known for evocative albums and immersive live performances.
His work centres on the use of synthesisers and both analogue and digital sound processing. He has appeared at prestigious festivals and venues including Berlin Atonal, Poesia en Voz Alta in Mexico City, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Centro de Cultura Contemporánea Condeduque in Madrid, Auditorium San Fedele in Milan, Le Guess Who in Utrecht, Mutek in Montreal and the Southbank Centre in London. He was commissioned by the Organ Reframed festival to compose a piece for pipe organ, electronics and trombones, performed at Union Chapel with the London Contemporary Orchestra. He has also performed with the seventy-piece Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, orchestrated by Sven Helbig and conducted by Daniel Bjarnasson. His work extends to film, including soundtracks for Duncan Whitley’s Kimberlin and Phoenix City, the latter commissioned by the Coventry Biennial. Mary Anne Hobbs has listed his remixes for Carl Craig and Fovea Hex with Brian Eno among her favourite tracks on BBC Radio, and Thom Yorke has included his music in mixes for NTS Radio and the BBC. His music appears across film, television, fashion, contemporary art and advertising, including the trailer for Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, Shane Meadows’ series Gallowspole, runway shows for Ferragamo, and campaigns for Lancôme and Mercedes. Recent releases include Impossibly Distant, Impossibly Close with Rafael Anton Irisarri and In uno spazio immenso with Grand River, alongside collaborations with Anna Von Hausswolff, KMRU and CoH. His latest album, Quiet Pieces, released on his imprint Soft Echoes, was described by The Quietus as “an album that builds enveloping constructs, reminding us that ambient drone can be as much about space and light as it is about texture and tone.

04/09/2026

Our picks from Extreme Chill 2026 DJ Krush, Abul Mogard, Rafael Anton Irisarri, Ulla and DJ Flugvél og Geimskip, across four downtown Reykjavík venues.

04/09/2026

Founded by Pan Thorarensen and his father Óskar Thorarensen in 2009, the Extreme Chill Festival has become the dominant cultural force in the music scene. Focusing on electronic and improvisation, the festival began in force in Snæfelsnes, but when it settled into Reykjavík it became a powerhouse.

“In 2009, Stereo Hypnosis had a concert in Snæfellsnes and in Hellisandur, and it was amazing,” Pan Thorarensen tells us. “And a lot of people came from Reykjavik, and we had Snorri Ásmundsson with us and Reptilicus and a lot of cool artists before we played. And then after the concert, of course, we went back to Reykjavik, and we were talking about it some weeks after and, and like, ‘We need to do something more.’”

Thus began the strange odyssey of Extreme Chill. It is remarkable how such a Reykjavík local relied on the countryside to develop his festival.

The pattern of Extreme Chill over 17 years matches the development of the festival scene. At one point, location was all that mattered. But more and more exotic locales without a strong connection to the music become less appealing. We regularly discuss this at the office, in the spirit of the way Roskilde has waned, and the appalling American projects of Woodstock ‘99 and the Fyre Festival.
In an article titled “Extremely Unchill: How Police Went Too Far At A Music Festival,” we covered how Snæfellsnes police staged a large-scale raid on the electronic festival in 2015. Despite massive police force and 29 arrests, there were very few successful prosecutions.

“In the end, I’m really happy now it happened,” Pan told us, reflecting on the police activity in 2015 that prompted a move to a less provincial locale. “Because now we’re in Reykjavik, and it’s more fun it’s getting bigger and, like, everything is more easy, of course, to organise.”

“In a way it was good PR, too. People in Grafarvogur know what Extreme Chill is because of that bust,” Pan jokes.

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