The intimate work of folk singer Árný Margrét surrounds the listener -- warmth protecting from the starkness of the world, an idea germane to her upbringing in Iceland and the tenor of her 2022 debut album, They Only Talk About the Weather. However, she pushed against the typical expectations of folk on her sophomore LP, I Miss You, I Do (2025), recruiting a full band and flirting with country elements. Hailing from the northwestern town of Ísafjörður (literally, "fjord of ice"), Árný Margrét Sævarsdóttir was born in 2001, the daughter of local bakers. She and her siblings learned music at an early age, with Árný taking her first piano lessons at the age of six. When she was 14 years old, she picked up a guitar on a whim; inspired by the indie folk stylings of Gregory Alan Isakov, she began teaching herself the instrument in secret, performing in public some three years later, when a favorite teacher requested her presence at a party. Árný began seriously writing songs after high school, when she moved to Denmark to attend a folk school (a European type of educational/creative campus with a freer structure than a typical college). Discouraged by the COVID-19 pandemic's spread across the continent, which required her to return home during a particularly dreary winter, she continued writing songs that she had started in Denmark. In 2021, she traveled to Reykjavík to participate in a battle of the bands and ended up meeting a local guitarist/producer, Guðmundur "Kiddi" Kristinn Jónsson. He helped her record more and more songs from her notebooks, which formed the bulk of her debut EP, Intertwined, and first full-length album, They Only Talk About the Weather, both released in 2022. The success of those releases, including songs like They Only Talk About the Weather's title track and "Cold Aired Breeze," enabled Árný to embark on tours around both Europe and the United States. She opened for acts like Blake Mills and Passenger, and performed sets at South by Southwest and the Newport Folk Festival. After releasing the EP Dinner Alone and the popular non-album single "Part of Me" with Icelandic singer Ásgeir in 2023, she had the opportunity to head to America to work on more music with producers including Brad Cook (Waxahatchee, Bon Iver) and Andrew Berlin (who produced her hero Isakov). Árný's writing and recording -- continuing the emotional intimacy of They Only Talk About the Weather but consciously adding a fuller band sound and traces of country-folk -- was chronicled on her second album, I Miss You, I Do, released in 2025 and featuring winning originals like "Took the Train 'Til the End," "Crooked Teeth," and "Day Old Thoughts." - Biography by Mike Duquette