Arny Margret never expected anyone to hear her songs. A homebody who had long worked in her family’s bakery in a small fishing town in the Westfjords of Iceland serendipitously found herself in the little Reykjavik studio of producer Guðm. Kristinn Jónsson—Kiddi, as she’d soon begin to call him—back in 2021. She tracked 10 tunes in a day and soon returned to track 10 more in what would later become the catalyst work for her sensational 2022 debut album, they only talk about the weather —a startlingly lucid snapshot of an indie folk start, tender feelings tucked into alluring melodies. In Margret’s songs, life could be disorienting; in her early work with Kiddi, she reckoned with it, safely.

Following the release of her debut, Marget was touring the world, opening for like minded artists like Leif Vollebekk, Blake Mills, Julian Lage, and Wilco. On the heels of U.S. support dates in Spring 2024, she arrived in Durham, North Carolina, to begin recording her spellbinding second album, I Miss You, I Do, with Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee, Hurray For The Riff Raff)—the first of three Americans who co-produced the album alongside her. Despite wanting to try new things and a new approach with this release, Margret found herself feeling already ready to go home, as she missed the comforts of the places she knew and felt anxious about the unknown. Yet soon, sitting in the control room of Cook’s studio, she found resolution as they listened to the playback of “Took the Train ’til the End,” a devastating and personal portrait of how it feels to never feel seen, as if you’re camouflaged from your own life. As the warm piano chords of Cook’s older brother, Phil, cradled Margret’s bittersweet voice and soft guitar, Brad began to cry, stirred by the new shape this song about trying to find self-definition had taken. Margret knew then that the fear of the unknown she’d had was worth it; that her ambitions for her second album were being realized in real time. This was the start of an important journey, an exquisite album.

RuMac & Support

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