The new E.P. ‘The Sky Is Painted Gray Today‘ of Icelandic folk-singer/songwriter Ásgeir has just been released. It is the follow-up to his latest album ‘Bury the Moon‘ (read the article about it and the Interview here).
It contains 4 songs, about the last one of these – ‘Sunday Drive‘ – we have written here. The new songs mark some kind of ‘back-to-the-roots’ for the singer, because all the songs are mostly acoustic-driven ballads where Asgeir puts his vocals around complex layers of acoustic guitars and piano-sounds. So don’t expect uptempo-songs like ‘King and Cross‘ but songs that are perfect for the upcoming autumn-days. Most of the songs have been already recorded in 2019 in the Icelandic village Hljodriti and have been refined in the last months. Lyrically he worked together again with his father and wrote them in Icelandic. With the help of friends like John Grant or Pétur Ben – whom he worked before on his debut album – the words were then translated into English.
The E.P starts with with the title track ‘The Sky Is Painted Gray Today‘. It is a very minimalistic instrumented classic folk song that contains one of Ásgeir’s strength: The absolute wonderful sound chord-progressions with the acoustic guitar.
The second song is ‘Sister’, another very down-to-earth ballad.
Following is ‘On the Edge’. Beside the fantastic melody and vocals from Ásgeir this one has great instrumental part with some synth-layers on it, perfect for drifting away.
And last is the already released track ‘Sunday Drive’. A piano-driven, intense ballad where his voice can enfold it’s sound.
‘The song is about a very memorable Sunday drive for me and my family when I was 7 years old.’ he writes.
Tour 2022
As it is planned now there will be a tour in Germany in 2022:
23. April – Bürgerhaus Stollwerck, Köln
25. April – Technikum, München
26. April – Täubchenthal, Leipzig
27. April – Central Station, Darmstadt
28. April – Markthalle, Hamburg
Follow Àsgeir
the web
facebook
twitter
instagram
Photo: Jonatan Gretarsson.
-
Rating
Summary
Ásgeir delivers with ‘The Sky Is Painted Gray Today’ another masterpiece of state-of-the-art folk-music from Iceland. No other words needed.