Ásgeir Trausti is an Icelandic national treasure who never thought he’d be touring as a globally acclaimed musician. In fact, he had his sights set on a javelin career until an unrecoverable accident thwarted those dreams at the age of 17. His trajectory to musical recognition was an unexpected success story filled with famous family poets and rock music, surprising himself most of all.

After garnering international praise with his re-released in English debut album In The Silence in 2014, his folktronica fans have been spellbound by his softly lilting voice and minimalist sounds.

Singing under the mononym Ásgeir, the 27-year-old now performs to crowds tenfold larger than his population-of-40 hometown Laugarbakki – an initially daunting prospect for the gentle soul. Having released his third studio album Bury The Moon on February 7^th, he’s set to have toured the entire globe by the time the year’s out.

Check out ‘Pictures’ by Ásgeir:

“I was quite anxious going out on tour and now I’m just really excited about the opportunity and I think I’m a more thankful person than I used to be,” he told Tone Deaf. “Thankful for this kind of opportunity because I know it doesn’t come easy to do what I do. A lot of people try and try it and they deserve it just as much, or more than me so.”

But the humble Ásgeir has worked hard to get to where he is now, and he credits his country for the cultivation of his passion and unique sound.

“I tell people where I grew up and how that influenced me and being in such small town and having so much time finding my own kind of hobby which was music and playing instruments,” he said.

“You can’t just be a classical musician and be stuck in a hole [in Iceland]. You’re always interfering and connecting to people and heavy metal, and you know electronic music, and all other types of music, they all kind of overlap…

“I think really, I’m more kind of encouraged to be more just free and just do what we like to do. You know, instead of thinking about music as a business, because it can’t be like a big business here in [Iceland] at all. So, I think that way we are more kind of encouraged to just follow what we’d like to do,” he explained.

Listen to ‘King and Cross’ by Ásgeir:

In creating his previous albums’ lyrics, Ásgeir collaborated with his dad Einar Georg Einarsson, a celebrated Icelandic poet, and John Grant on translation. However, for Bury The Moon, the singer-songwriter locked himself away in a summerhouse just outside of Reykjavík and discovered a solitary process that’s produced his proudest album yet.

“I wanted to kind of go a bit back to the roots and just think about new music and song writing – kind of a different perspective than I’ve been thinking about it for the last few years,” he said. “Just think about the songs and record them and have all the focus channelled only on that… I think I would do it again, it worked out really good.”

In The Silence featured a more folk repertoire of bare instruments, whereas Ásgeir’s second album Afterglow experimented with post-production electronics. However, Afterglow didn’t satisfy the outlet he had first hoped.

“In early 2018 when I started touring the second album, I just sort felt like I had something unfinished to do. So when we stopped touring, I went and worked on working on [Bury The Moon] and it felt like I hadn’t been like delivering, or doing what … yeah, I felt like I had something unfinished with it, so I went straight to think about this album,” he said.

Watch ‘Youth’ by Ásgeir:

The titular track of Bury The Moon is one he’s most excited for fans to hear.

“I think that there are a few songs which will kind show a new or different kind of ‘outscape’ feel. There are songs on there that are kind of fresh, I think. ‘Bury the Moon’ is quite kind of different from what I’ve done before. I’m kind of excited to hear what people have to say about that,” he said.

Ásgeir will be returning to Australian shores in May to perform a string of shows for his latest release. He previously had an overwhelming response in our polar opposite country back in 2017 when he played Splendour In The Grass and performed two special headline shows early last year. This upcoming tour is set to be bigger and better than ever, adding New Zealand to the leg.