The Short Story:

Hit the Decks #3 is a 28 page, full color magazine about the music scene in Reykjavík, Iceland, printed by the inimitable Fireball Printing on high quality satin paper. In it, you’ll find: interviews with electronic and acoustic composer Iris Thorarins, DJ and electronic producer Þorður Arnarson (Dynkur), Pan Thorarensen (Stereo Hypnosis, Space Odyssey, Extreme Chill Festival), and David Berndsen (Berndsen); reviews and write-ups about my favorite bands, music venues,  record shops, restaurants, bars, secondhand shops, and natural sights around the city; photography from all over the country; and, what everyone wants, lots and lots of cat pictures! 

The Long Story:

In June, 2022, my partner Katie & I were selected to attend a writer's residency in Reykjavík, Iceland, through the UNESCO City of Literature program. We spent a little over a month living in the basement flat of Gröndalshús, a century old house-turned-museum dedicated to the Icelandic naturalist and poet Benedikt Gröndal. 

While there, I began to sketch out the third issue of my DIY music magazine, Hit the Decks. I run Displaced Snail, a DIY zine publisher and boutique record label, with a focus on cassettes. Hit the Decks is one of my favorite projects, the place where my love of writing, design, and music all meet. I took on the task of answering the most relevant question on everyone's lips today: are there cassettes in Iceland? What I found blossomed larger than any one article I could ever write, and in addition to yes, finding tapes, I also found the most phenomenal music, a community that welcomed me with open arms, and new friends who I hope to keep for life. 

The longer I spent in Reykjavík the longer I realized that my time here couldn't be contained to one or two articles in the magazine: Reykjavík WAS the magazine. What began as a simple question evolved into an entire music magazine, and much, much more. 

I was so taken with the culture that I couldn't stop at just the music: I began to exhaustively note down the bars we visited, the restaurants who served us, the record stores we picked through. I've included the highlights of our trips around and outside the city--without a car!--and give a solid rundown of all the music venues we visited, and even those we wanted to visit but didn't get to. My vision of a music magazine slowly shifted into a catalogue of a city's culture: music, food, hiking, shops.