Ari Birgisson
At the age of 8, Arinbjørn Birgisson decided to learn piano after hearing Coldplay’s “Amsterdam.” By 14, Ari had inherited his father’s reel-to-reel tape recorder.
Initially working alone on his piano, Ari was later joined by friends, including Sigvald Hansen, with whom he recorded his first home demos. Cassette in hand, they toured the labels in Reykjavik — without success.
The two friends kept making music together until Ari left for his studies in France in 2018. With a suitcase too full to bring his piano or tape recorder, and with no experience in digital music production, it marked a kind of musical dry spell.
Fearing being stuck in France indefinitely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Ari returned to Reykjavik earlier than planned, in March 2020.
In the autumn of 2020, 3 To The Third Music, an independent label based in Namur (Belgium), was preparing a compilation of instrumental tracks for the end of the year.
Dr Olive, head of the label, had the idea to introduce Ari to Laurent Auffret, sensing a strong artistic connection between them. Laurent helped produce Ari’s track “Hljóðaklettar” for the compilation, which was released on December 21, 2020.
After that, Ari joined The Queen Is Dead Records, where they started working together on his first album. As a warm-up, they produced “A mon seul désir”, a cover of a track by The Burmese Days from their album “It Took Time”.
In April 2024, Dr Olive curated another compilation: “Does A.I. Dream Of Electronic Music? — [Part IV: A Retro-futurist Time Warp To The 20th Century]”, which featured “Það hefur sál”, a track for which Ari and The Queen Is Dead Records collaborated once again — both musically and visually.