Sigur Rós drummer Orri Páll Dýrason has left the band after being accused of raping a woman in 2013.
Los Angeles-based artist Meghan Boyd made the allegation in an Instagram post last week, claiming she woke up "with the feeling of being penetrated without my consent during a deep slumber" after "falling asleep in the same bed".
She claims to have met Dýrason at a club in LA, and says that the assault happened twice: "I wondered myself why I didn't leave after the first time – but I was drunk, dead tired, in shock." She said that the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford against US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was the trigger for her speaking out about her own experience.
In another post, Boyd accused Dýrason of "gaslighting, and trying to silence me as well as denying what he did to me in 2013. She claimed to have screenshots of emails showing her correspondence with him, which were reportedly taken down for violating Instagram's community standards.
Sigur Ros formed in Iceland in 1994 and released their debut album three years later. In 1999 they made their international breakthrough with Ágætis Byrjun. Dýrason joined the band for their third album and they played as a four-piece until 2013, when keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson left.
The band have since announced in a Facebook post that, in the wake of the "extremely serious and personal allegations made against him", they had accepted Dýrason's resignation "to allow him to deal with this privately".
Dýrason denied the allegation in a separate post from his Facebook account.
"In light of the scale of this matter, I have decided to leave Sigur Rós," he said. "That is a difficult decision for me, but I cannot have these serious allegations influence the band and the important and beautiful work that has been done there for the last years. A job that is so dear to me."
He added: "I will do anything in my power to get myself out of this nightmare, but out of respect for those actually suffering from sexual violence, I will not take that fight public."
