Icelandic singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ásgeir returns with brand new single “Unbound,” from his forthcoming second album Afterglow, listen now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkJyXDcFNQI&feature=youtu.be
Says NPR Music’s Bob Boilen: “What I hear in this song is a shift from guitar-based music toward laptop electronics, something like the shift Bon Iver made and that James Blake has been pioneering — that mix of the intimate with the machine. And with all the work he's carefully put into Afterglow, Ásgeir has chosen to release as the first single a song that happened very much at the end of the process.”
“I met Ásgeir when I was in Iceland doing research for my book, Your Song Changed My Life,” Boilen continues. “He'd quickly gone from javelin thrower to pop star — his first rehearsal space was a sheep's pen. Soon, one out of every 10 people in Iceland would own his 2012 debut, Dyrd í dauðathogn, which was recorded in Icelandic. A few years later, with the help of American songwriter John Grant, Ásgeir remade his debut album, singing in English and releasing it worldwide as In The Silence.”
“Unbound” is a stunning, yearning piece of music—surely a career-defining moment for the 24-year-old musician. Ásgeir has spent three years honing and perfecting the eleven tracks that make up this magnificent and affecting body of work. Unplanned track and lead single from the album “Unbound” is a glittering menagerie of chirping electronic melodies and stop-start beats that came about in a last minute studio session, evolving from a singular, inspiring lyric: “Nothing holds me back now.”