Sometimes it’s the simplest things that are the best.
No, ‘I Know You Know‘ the latest track to be taken from Ásgeir‘s second album, the recently-released Afterglow isn’t a radical new sound that you’ve never heard before. But what it is is a fantastic example of how infectious and beautiful his electronica meeting folk – think Bon Iver meets James Blake sound really is. (f you thought ‘folktronica’, hang your head in shame. We don’t need your negativity around here, mate.) Autumn may be on the way, but the track itself is like a blast of sunshine in the late summer that makes you feel like you can handle the inevitable darkness.
And the accompanying music video builds upon this. It was filmed near Ásgeir’s hometown in the north of Iceland by directors Baldvin Albertsson and Arnar Helgi Hlynsson. They explained the inspiration behind the video as follows: ” Basically our pitch was inspired by Ásgeir’s recent “slow-tv” that aired in Iceland, so we took the idea a step further and made a “slow-music video” about Ásgeir simply having a nice day working in the field. But, as usually happens in creative projects we started getting ideas as we went and together came up with the ending that we thought was really nice.”
Ah yes, the ending. It’s so nice to be able to shut your eyes and just appreciate the music or get absorbed in the scenery – the last video that sold the Icelandic scenery so bewitchingly was surely the Sugarcubes’ Birthday – that you shouldn’t lose track of the final few seconds that make sense of the whole thing.
All in all, it’s like being given a warm but gentle hug that sets up your ears and eyes for the day.
