Iceland: Whaddaya know about it? If you’re like me — despite being a geography nerd at a young age — the true answer is “virtually nothing,” aside from its vaunted natural beauty. That’s why international music showcases at South by Southwest (shoutout to the venerable British Embassy) may be the most culturally enriching auditory experience you can have there. And last Tuesday night at Shangri-La, a trio of Icelandic artists created a worthwhile exchange program that managed to highlight the island nation’s dream-pop and indie rock stylings. Iceland Airwaves is a well-respected annual festival occurring each year in Reykjavic, and this sampler of some of the island’s young talent succeeded in adding another international multi-day festival to my bucket list if the timing is ever right (the top of this list, in case you’re curious, has for years belonged to Glastonbury).

The de facto top-billed act, superserious (top photo), earned that designation through a cancellation by actor-musician Elín Hall. But superserious’ quirky indie-rock energy rounded out the sets nicely — they feel familiar in a good way, with high-energy melody and chiming guitar lines out of standard-issue instrumentation. Singer-guitarist Daníel Jón’s androgynous, naturally disarming vocals, in English, have that idiosyncratic quality that makes slightly off-center rock so tasty. And as you might expect from their name, superserious wields more than a touch of dry wit onstage. Before introducing closing rocker “Bye bye honey,” Jón began a final word to his audience in which he self-interjected, “I don’t want to turn this into an Oscars speech, an Adrien Brody kind of thing.” Uptempo selections like “Let’s consume” and “Bye bye honey” were standouts, as was yet another “let’s” song, the more restrained and contemplative “Let’s hurt.” A good crowd on the Shang porch for these acts prompted Jón to say early in the set, “Thank you for coming. It would be so awkward if no one would be here. So I’m glad to have you guys.”

Sunna Margrét, a much more bohemian pop artist who preceded superserious, asked two fun rhetorical questions during her turn onstage, one of which was more rhetorical than the other. First, she asked if members of her crowd were familiar with the Feelies — and naturally, plenty of people were — before playing a cover of “Let’s Go.” (“Let’s” songs were really having a moment at Iceland Airwaves.) Second, more adorably, she asked if it was OK “to curse,” a nice little introduction to “Fuck It,” a song Margrét released in 2019. Atmospheric, out-there tracks like “Ashore” and the aforementioned “Fuck It” make more impact as carefully crafted studio tracks than as live fodder; her beats, which are very central to the Sunna Margrét experience, don’t have the same impact live. But, backed by a guitarist, keyboardist and drummer to augment her bass playing, Margrét gave the uninitiated a solid taste of her songwriting and production skills.

Atmospherics are also the whole ballgame for lúpína, the evening’s opener and only one-person show. Songs like her closer, “ein á báti,” showcased the ethereal voice and stately electronics that typically compose her sound, which runs somewhat toward a more sedate Imogen Heap vibe. Hopping from one offering featuring vintage Nintendo-type programming (think Mario or Zelda) through one song in English (the pretty “lúpína’s sad club”) to another inspired by a video of a climate change scientist and “how we should be freaking out, but we aren’t,” lúpína was a bit shy yet ably in command of the keys and beats during her 35-minute set. Her sound came across as the most introspective and insular, in the sense of sounding like it came from an island, isolated from the rest of the globe. Iceland isn’t the most populous place on Earth, checking in with less than 400,000 humans. But these three artists suggest that the talent pool is big enough for plenty of good musical exports to our shores — as long as they don’t get tariffs slapped on them, of course.