Ásgeir

You know when you listen to music that takes you somewhere? Sometimes it’s somewhere you’ve been, sometimes it’s somewhere you’ve only imagined. Ásgeir creates music that takes me somewhere where I’m alone. Not just alone though, alone with nature. Alone in a vast expanse of space that is just waiting for me to fill it with all the things that I have bouncing around inside of me.

I expect that it has much to do with the fact that he is an Icelandic singer/songwriter that writes music that mirrors the environment that he was bought up in. If you’ve watched any Scandinavian drama’s, you’ll begin to understand the love that they have for wide open spaces and the power it holds. Cold, vacuous & expansive.

Now imagine the softness and warmth required to tinge this scene so it feels inspiring and cinematic, and you’re on your way to understanding Ásgeir…but with the look off a handsome, woke viking. [goddam you Scandinavian bone structure!]

Born Ásgeir Trausti, he grew up in a tiny village of approximately 40 inhabitants, two and a half hours drive north of Reykjavík. Classically trained to play the guitar and piano from six years old at 16 he left the countryside to live in the city…it feels like it would have been the perfect storm to create an individual who creates music that is beyond intimate.

Blending heart felt folk music with smatterings of electronic influences, his debut album ‘Dýrð í dauðaþögn’ [Translated ‘Glory in Dead Silence’] released in Iceland in 2012 became the fastest ever selling debut album in his homeland, beating out  Björk and Sigur Rós. Because of its success, it was then translated into English in 2014 and gifted to the world titled ‘In the Silence’.

Now, admittedly I jumped on the Ásgeir bandwagon pretty early. As soon as I heard his debut song [to an english speaking audience] ‘King and Cross’, it was one of those moments where I stopped dead and literally said out loud “Who the fuck is this!?”.[I actually remember where and when I said this] From then on in, I just played that debut album to death. I started reading more about him and whether by intention or by simple destiny, the aura that surrounds him via his music style and the way he delivers it is…visceral? palpable? infectious? Possibly all of the above.

But I regress back to my original comment which for me is one of the most powerful of all skills, cinematic. I know everyone translates music in different ways. I can only try to describe what happens to me when I hear certain kinds of music and when I listen to Ásgeir, I feel as though I’m standing in an incomprehensible expanse of Scandinavian countryside at dawn with the mist lifting through a slight drizzle of rain and being able to actually feel the impact that silence has on the human body.I always assumed that this was what he meant by Glory in Dead Silence.

And to add just a little to the romance of something that sounds as though it should be awarded Mood Music’s soundtrack of the year, his father Einar Georg Einarsson who is a retired university lecturer and poet known for evoking rustic, Nordic imagery wrote a lot of the lyrics for his first album. If you haven’t heard this album yet, this collaboration with his father simply makes it more endearing.

His second album ‘Afterglow’ released in 2017 took a little more of an electronic diversion that his original, more acoustic offering. But was still beautiful when you stack it up against other artists in the genre. But its not his first one. His first one still runs epic balls around most any other debut albums.

Then came ‘Bury the Moon’. Only released this year, he feels as though he reverted back to what made his first album so beautiful. Like remembering the soul of his first album while bringing a little more joy into the tracks. I’m still getting used to it, but every day it gets better.

So, considering we’re in the midst of the isolation wave, it makes me gravitate toward music that makes me feel as though there is always room to enjoy the solitary space. And I’m not sure if there are many other artists that ask me to not only enjoy that space, but actively seek it out.

I was playing ‘Going Home’ from the debut album the other night as the darkness of the night began to set in and I could feel the rain just beginning to get a foothold on the night and the best part was that I didn’t think anything. I just felt. Felt and let it conjured images in my head. In retrospect, it was kind of like a meditation. And I think thats why I love his music so much.

Increasingly, as I get older I actively search for music that allows me to breathe inside it. Like Elliot Moss a few weeks back, Ásgeir’s gentle nature and humble approach doesn’t ask for anything more than for you to listen. And when you do, its beautiful. Like for reals beautiful.

I have to cast out a bit of love here for one of my dearest friends Brad Buenen and his wife Liv for spoiling me in 2014 with tickets to see Ásgeir at the Forum for my birthday. Considering I’d been smashing the album, it was easy to enjoy pretty much every minute of the gig, and apart from all the amazing tracks from ‘In the Silence’, it was his rendition of Nirvana’s ‘Heart Shaped Box’ that took me over the edge. As far as covers go…its up there….like right up the top somewhere. And to be able to see it live was fucking special.

If you get a chance, and you aren’t used to his music, maybe find a quiet space doing something isolation-y and throw on ‘In the Silence’. If you like it, go for the others, but try not to analyse it too much or else you loose the always soft around the edges glow that is Ásgeir.

M /