Ásgeir

Ásgeir, an Icelandic singer and songwriter, crafts intimate and soulful compositions that blend indie electronic elements with atmospheric folk. His debut album Dýrð í Dauðaþögn arrived in 2012 and achieved unprecedented success at home, reaching the top of the Icelandic charts and attaining multi-platinum certification. An English-language edition produced the international hit "King and Cross," which opened doors for later releases including Afterglow (2017) and Bury the Moon/Sátt (2020) that steadily expanded his worldwide following. The artist's fifth album, Time on My Hands, appeared in 2022.

Born Ásgeir Trausti Einarsson in the small village of Laugarbakki, he achieved sudden fame in 2012 upon issuing his first record, Dýrð í Dauðaþögn. That chart-topping effort shattered nearly all existing Icelandic sales benchmarks, its textured folk-pop sound rendered even more distinctive because the bulk of the lyrics came from his father, 72-year-old poet Einar Georg Einarsson. In 2013, after Iceland-based American singer/songwriter John Grant assisted with lyric translation, Ásgeir issued an English counterpart titled In the Silence through One Little Indian; the set reached charts in the U.K. and Australia largely on the strength of the breakout single "King and Cross." Whereas the original mixed acoustic guitar with wistful electronic pieces, its 2017 successor Afterglow embraced bolder and more experimental electronic palettes, securing chart entries across Europe and Australia.

Ásgeir's fourth album surfaced in early 2020 in simultaneous Icelandic (Sátt) and English (Bury the Moon) editions that were also issued together as the double album Bury the Moon/Sátt, prompting comparisons with boundary-pushing figures such as Bon Iver and James Blake. The vocalist sustained an introspective mood on his fifth full-length, 2022's Time on My Hands, which incorporated brass into its layered sonic palette. An alternate take he titled Time on My Hands (Lo-Fi Version) followed in 2023.