Icelandic indie folk singer/songwriter Arny Margret takes us track-by-track through her soul-stirring sophomore album ‘I Miss You, I Do’ – an intimate, delicate, and boldly ambitious endeavor that embraces a more expansive sound without sacrificing its raw, emotional core.
Stream: “I Miss You, I Do” – Arny Margret
Arny Margret has always had a way of making the vast feel intimate.
Hailing from the remote Westfjords of Iceland, the singer/songwriter has steadily carved out a space for herself with her raw, introspective lyricism and warm, delicate melodies. Her music brims with a quiet intensity, blending folk sensibilities with a deep emotional resonance that lingers long after the final note fades. Following her 2022 debut they only talk about the weather, Margret returns with I Miss You, I Do, an achingly intimate and expressive album that expands her sonic landscape while staying true to the confessional storytelling that first endeared her to listeners.
One day we’ll meet
like nothing ever happened
Talk about the bruises on our feet
And we’ll think of the time
we shared once upon a time
Linking arms on the street
Oh, I miss you, I do
And I hope you do
Oh, I miss you, I do
And I know you do
– “I Miss You, I Do,” Arny Margret
Released March 7th via one little independent records, I Miss You, I Do is both a continuation and a bold step forward. With a richer, fuller sound shaped by collaborations in both the U.S. and Iceland, Margret leans into folk textures and layered instrumentation, capturing a sense of growth and artistic exploration in songs that feel gentle, yet dramatic – but forever tender at heart. At its core, this album remains deeply personal: A collection of snapshots from the artist’s life, woven together with the same honesty and vulnerability that have defined her earlier work.
“It’s kind of like a diary for me, stories and experiences from my life,” Margret tells Atwood Magazine. “The songs are all written around the same time so they fit well together. The only vision I had was to make the sound bigger and more folky. I think it didn’t really change throughout recording the record, it just got clearer and made more sense to me what I was doing.”
To bring I Miss You, I Do to life, Margret stepped beyond the solitary confines of her early songwriting process and into studios across the U.S., working closely with acclaimed producers Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee, Hurray For The Riff Raff), Andrew Berlin (Gregory Alan Isakov, Rise Against), and Josh Kaufman (Bonny Light Horseman, Bob Weir, The Hold Steady). Each collaborator brought a new dimension to her music, pushing her to explore fuller arrangements and richer sonic textures while maintaining the stark intimacy at the core of her artistry. From recording in Raleigh, North Carolina, to Gregory Alan Isakov’s studio in Colorado, and Kaufman’s camp in Woodstock, New York, the album became a reflection of both physical and creative movement – of Margret embracing change and leaning into a bigger, more expansive sound without losing the raw sincerity that defines her work.
“I think it’s very me at this moment in time, that also goes with my debut album they only talk about the weather,” she explains. “I’m ready now for the bigger sound and I want to explore more. Back then, I was starting out and had only been making songs in my room. I was used to my songs being very raw, so that was the way for me to do it back then. I think I’m always changing and growing more into my music.”
Margret candidly describes I Miss You, I Do as bright, honest, and vulnerable.
“I liked the title; it’s simple, but meaningful to me,” she smiles. “I also like the song and the story behind it, which is about missing someone you love that is far away. I wrote that song in maybe 10 minutes the night before recording with Josh. I had a few ideas for album titles, but this one felt right to me; it felt bright and hopeful.”
From end to end, I Miss You, I Do proves a breathtakingly beautiful listening experience.
The record opens with the title track – in which Margret dwells in a space of blue, brooding nostalgia and unfiltered longing, burdened by the weight of a not-so-distant past and the bittersweet pain of her present. “Twenty-three and a midlife crisis,” she sings softly over a warm blanket of acoustic and electric sound. “Will you sing me to sleep? You’re so far and I’m tired of calling, dreaming of the day we meet.” Her soul is exposed; her voice is rich, tender, and hauntingly delicate, the emotions she puts into every word as powerful as the emotions she withholds.
Such is the case with all of I Miss You, I Do’s ten songs – each one is at once a time capsule and a cathartic release from the artist’s innermost depths. Standouts include the warm confessional “Crooked Teeth,” the sweetly stirring “I Love You,” the seductive, smile-inducing “You’re Mine, I’m Yours,” and the atmospheric and enchanting “Happy New Year,” which closes the record in a state of dreamy bliss.
“My highlight(s) from making the record was definitely recording in the US, meeting and working with all of the producers that worked with me on this,” Margret says. “I remember Brad crying when we listened to ‘Took the Train ‘til the End’ after recording the whole day, that was definitely a moment that stays with me. Another one was when Josh made me try to start a song a capella – it totally freaked me out, but it worked out in the end. Just a bunch of these little moments. I’m very proud of the work I did on this record; it was scary but rewarding.”
As for her favorite lyrics, she says, “I have a lot – all of them, really. I’m very proud of these songs and the lyrics, they all mean a lot to me. ‘Took the Train ’til the End,’ ‘Happy New Year,’ and ‘Crooked Teeth,’ for example, are very personal to me – they’re honest, raw, and melancholic. ‘I Love You’ and ‘I Miss You, I Do’ feel very bright to me. To me, there is a feeling that comes with each song, and I feel like I have a favourite line in every one of them. I really can’t pick!”
At its core, I Miss You, I Do is an album of self-discovery and emotional reckoning – one that finds Arny Margret embracing change while holding onto the deeply personal, diaristic songwriting that has always been at the heart of her artistry.
Each song is a moment captured in time, a reflection of love and longing, distance and connection, fear and growth. Whether stripped down or layered with rich folk textures, her music carries an undeniable sincerity, inviting listeners into her world with open arms. And if there’s one thing she hopes for, it’s that this album resonates, offering comfort, catharsis, or simply a space to feel.
“I just hope it makes people feel something or feel more deeply,” she shares. “Also, if it can help people through stuff, that’s all that I hope my music will do. That’s what it did, for me, at least.”
Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside Arny Margret’s I Miss You, I Do with Atwood Magazine as she goes track-by-track through the music and lyrics of her sophomore album!
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:: stream/purchase I Miss You, I Do here ::
:: connect with Arny Margret here ::
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Stream: ‘I Miss You, I Do’ – Arny Margret
:: Inside I Miss You, I Do ::
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I Miss You, I Do
“The song was recorded with Josh Kaufman in Kingston, New York, this was actually a song I wrote the night before I met him. I wanted to have a good song to take with me, so I wrote it in my pyjamas in the Airbnb I was staying at before I went to sleep. I think this is the song I’m most fond of on the album. It’s different and it has this cool texture. It’s mostly about being far from someone you love and missing them and hoping that they miss you too. To me it’s a very simple but meaningful song”.
Crooked Teeth
“It’s about feeling unnoticed and forgotten. But it’s also about what makes me who I am, I used to have crooked teeth and I have my mother’s eyes. This is a very personal song to me. It’s about the good and the bad, it’s about growing up and knowing who you are. I worked with Andrew Berlin on this one. Steve Varney also played a lot of instruments on it which was so cool, I love his work”.
Greyhound Station
“This one was recorded in Brad Cook’s studio in Raleigh, North Carolina, in his home studio. I think it was the first session I did with a new producer, so I was kind of scared about it. After almost 3 weeks of touring, we met up, and we just talked a bit, and then we recorded the song. I think this was actually the first song we did. I wrote it while touring, maybe a week before the session. It was the first song I tried with banjo, with a more folky sound. Brad’s brother Phil played the banjo and some keys, which was really nice. It was really different and exciting to me to hear my songs with these new instruments. To me, this is a bright song, rather than a dark one, which is why I like it, and this is something I was trying to do more with this record. This song was very inspired by the ‘American’ sound, which I like”.
I Love You
“I recorded this one in Iceland with Kiddi and a band. This one I wrote for my mom. I went to visit her after I hadn’t seen her for a long time, I didn’t realise I missed her until I met her. It’s about her and her childhood home, the farm she grew up on, it’s a song for her really and a song I really love. To me it feels like a letter to her, it feels very true and special to me. This is one of the first songs I recorded for this record”.
Day Old Thoughts
“This was recorded here in Iceland last fall with Kiddi and the same band that I recorded I Love You with. We tried a few different versions with this one, practiced it a few times and then it suddenly came together. This song almost didn’t make it to the record because I didn’t like the original lyrics. I then realized that the song was actually pretty good so I tweaked all the lyrics I didn´t like and fixed them. I’m very proud of this song, it has a cool beat and a fuller sound. This song says a lot of things, it’s honest.”
Maybe I’ve Wasted My Time
“This is about overthinking stuff that’s already happened that you can’t change, It’s about growing up and rethinking parts of our past. It’s my thoughts about everything and nothing. This one is maybe one of the more melancholic ones on the record. This song is very honest to me, almost like a diary entry. It’s all the things that I wouldn’t really say out loud to anyone”.
Took the Train ’til the End
“This is another one with Brad Cook. And I wrote it while I was visiting Denmark for a bit with my friend. It’s many things in one, but it’s kind of a sad song. It’s about not being remembered or appreciated, but mostly it’s about the realization that, no matter how someone might make you feel, it doesn’t make you whatever they say about you. Phil Cook did some piano on this one and Brad did some cool synths. This song is full of feeling and vulnerability. When me and Brad were listening back to what we had made he cried. It was a weird and special moment full of feelings. That’s exactly what I want my music to do”.
You’re Mine, I’m Yours
“This was another one with Josh in Kingston, New York. It’s like a nice letter to a friend. I like working with weird people with great ideas, who don’t really care about what the norm is, and Josh has this crazy mind, which was so cool, and really nice to work with. He’s all about how the music feels, which I am too. It was so nice to get to work on some of these songs with him. This is a very bright song, almost a love song really”
Born in Spring
“This song is about loving someone that doesn’t really make you feel like the best version of yourself. Sometimes you can be nicer to people when there’s some space between you, that’s kind of this song. It’s not a bitter song, it’s about taking healthy space when you need it. It’s about knowing what you want and what you don’t want. This album is about making something new and figuring out who I am and what I’m trying to say.”
Happy New Year
“Happy New Year was recorded with Andrew Berlin in Gregory Alan Isakov’s studio in Colorado. I actually met him a tiny bit when we got there which was so cool. He’s probably my biggest musical inspiration. So it was really crazy to be recording in that studio. This is about Christmas and New Year. New Year’s Eve has never been the best time of year for me, I’ve always felt like it’s a sad and dark time and there are probably a lot more people out there that connect to that. To me it’s not this super melancholic or sad song even though the lyrics are that way a bit. In the end of the song it goes to this repeating chorus which gives a completely different feeling. I’m very proud of this song. Steve Varney from Gregory’s band played the banjo, which was really cool. I actually also did a bit of drums on this one, so I’m doing a few different things.”
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:: stream/purchase I Miss You, I Do here ::
:: connect with Arny Margret here ::
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