Seabear

Sindri Már Sigfússon first conceived Seabear as a solitary outlet for his Icelandic indie folk material, yet the lineup had grown into a seven-piece collective by 2007, the year the band issued its debut full-length, The Ghost That Carried Us Away. The same detailed, chiefly acoustic textures, soft lead singing, and understated choral layers resurfaced on the follow-up, We Built a Fire, which appeared in 2010. Sigfússon subsequently concentrated on the more electronic-leaning Sin Fang, delivering five albums under that name throughout the 2010s before Seabear reconvened to explore folk-rock territory once again on 2022’s In Another Life.

He had begun using the Seabear moniker in 2003 and slowly brought in other Icelandic songwriters and visual artists before tracking the debut album with Gudbjörg Hlin Gudmundsdottir, Ingibjörg Birgisdóttir, Halldór Ragnarsson, Örn Ingi Ágústsson, Kjartan Bragi Bjarnason, and Sóley Stefánsdóttir (aka Sóley). Morr Music released the set, whose restrained yet expansive folk textures reached listeners abroad in 2008 after “Cat Piano” was placed in an episode of Gossip Girl. Although Sigfússon also issued his own Clangour that year under the name Sin Fang Bous, Seabear sustained its upward trajectory over the next two years. In 2010 the group completed its first American tour and released the second album, We Built a Fire, which contained “Cold Summer,” later featured on Grey’s Anatomy.

After trimming the parallel project’s name to Sin Fang, Sigfússon placed five further, increasingly synth-driven albums on Morr Music across the 2010s, the last of them Sad Party in 2019. Stefánsdóttir meanwhile enjoyed solo recognition with four albums and six EPs as Sóley. The pair joined Múm’s Örvar Smárason for the 2017 compositional work Team Dreams, credited to Örvar Smárason, Sóley, and Sin Fang. Sigfússon then reassembled Seabear, which offered the single “Waterphone” in 2019 and later placed it on In Another Life, the band’s first album in twelve years, issued by Morr Music in 2022 and signaling a return to structured song.