Icelandic singer/songwriter Ásgeir specializes in intimate, soulful songs that span indie electronic and atmospheric folk. His 2012 debut Dýrð í Dauðaþögn was an unprecidented success in his home country, topping the Icelandic charts on its way to multi-platinum status. An English-language version yielded the international hit "King and Cross," paving the way for subsequent albums like Afterglow (2017) and Bury the Moon/Sátt (2020) which continued to grow his global audience. Ásgeir's fifth album, Time on My Hands, was released in 2022.

Born Ásgeir Trausti Einarsson in the diminutive hamlet of Laugarbakki, he became an overnight success in 2012, with the release of his debut album, Dýrð í Dauðaþögn. The chart-topping album broke nearly every Icelandic sales record, and its textural folk-pop style was made all the more idiosyncratic by the fact that his 72-year-old father, poet Einar Georg Einarsson, provided the majority of the lyrics. In 2013, with the help of Iceland-based American singer/songwriter John Grant, who helped to translate the lyrics, Asgeir released an English version of Dýrð í Dauðaþögn (In the Silence) on the One Little Indian label. It charted in several other countries, including the U.K. and Australia, thanks to the breakout hit "King and Cross." While that album featured a mix of acoustic guitar and wistful electronic tracks, the follow-up, 2017's Afterglow, took on bolder, more experimental electronic textures and was rewarded with chart placements around Europe and Australia.

Ásgeir's fourth album was released in early 2020 in both Icelandic (Sátt) and English (Bury the Moon) versions. They were also packaged together as a double album, Bury the Moon/Sátt, and earned comparisons to boundary-pushing artists like Bon Iver and James Blake. The singer continued to explore an introspective tone on his fifth album, 2022's Time on My Hands, which added brass to his layered mixture of sounds. An alternate version, which he dubbed the Time on My Hands (Lo-Fi Version), was released in 2023. ~ James Christopher Monger