Agent Fresco – “Wait for Me” (video) (premiere)

Bridging alternative rock and progressive rock with a distinctly Icelandic twist, it’s tempting to see Agent Fresco as a mix of Dredg and Mew, but as you can hear on “Wait for Me”, the latest video from the band’s forthcoming third album Destrier, there’s a whole lot more to them than mere easy comparisons. There’s something much deeper, and much like their home country, a little mysterious too.

“I was inspired to write this song with Agent Fresco as a result of an experience I had when I was performing with Ólafur Arnalds in Copenhagen a few years ago,” singer Arnór Dan Arnarson says. “I was five years old when we moved to Denmark from Iceland. When I was 20 I lost my father to cancer and I returned to Iceland with my sisters, mother and my father in his coffin to hold his funeral. I stayed behind in Iceland after his funeral, thinking I was only going to live here for a year or two, but Agent Fresco happened in 2008 and making a career in music has now become my life. So back again to the story, I had been touring with Ólafur for some time and before our gig in Copenhagen I asked him if I could dedicate my last song to my family and my best friends, who were all in the audience. But when that moment in the program finally came, everything became just way too intense for me, thinking about the death of my father, the birth of my sisters’ children, the death of my friends’ parents. I’ve been absent from my loved ones through so many life-changing moments. Time hadn’t stood still simply because I was in Iceland and realising that was just heartbreaking. Those are the thoughts and feelings I wanted to capture in ‘Wait for Me’.”

As for the video, Arnarson says, “When I was informed that we were going to release this song as a single and a video was needed, I just couldn’t think of a concept that would do it justice. Then I realised I had all the footage I needed in my own living room: VHS tapes my mom had converted to digital and given to us children when my father had passed away. It was really difficult to go through the footage and to hear my father’s voice. I’ve had trouble doing this since his death, but this video finally gave me focus and a purpose and I started to go through everything with a lump in my throat and a smile on my face. I knew instantly that I wanted the footage to be the first years of us as a family and our move to Denmark. Just so much innocence, love and new life to be witnessed during that period of time. I’m also forever in debt to Gísli Þór Brynjólfsson and Kári Jóhannsson who helped me cut and edit this video. They worked with us on the See Hell video as well and I simply could not have done this without them. This video is a tribute to my incredible family. They’ve already seen the results and luckily they’ve all given their blessings even though this video is incredibly personal and contains our private footage. This is to them and I hope that our audience can connect somehow to the love and joy that went into making it.”

Destrier will be released 8 August. Pre-order it here.