Ruxpin

Born on 6 April 1981 in Iceland, Jonas Thor Gudmundsson drew early inspiration from Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, Future Sound Of London, and Vangelis. At seventeen he completed his debut collection of delicate, exploratory electronica, issuing Radio in 1999. Its successor, Midnight Drive, appeared on the Frankfurt imprint Elektrolux, renowned for curating the long-running Space Night programme on German television and for the series of companion down-tempo releases that accompanied the broadcast.

To underscore how naturally his sound could score the ethereal or the arcane, Ruxpin titled his next album Magrathea after the mythical world in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy whose inhabitants construct entire planets. The record that followed, Avalon, borrowed its name from the legendary island refuge in the western seas to which, according to Celtic tradition, King Arthur and other champions retire upon death.

Ruxpin has supplied remixes for Múm, Ampop, Krom, and Sanasol, and contributed to the 2002 Thule Records anthology 42 More Things To Do In Zero Gravity, a carefully chosen survey of electronica that underscored the kinship between ambient textures and Iceland’s distinctive landscape.