Toggi

Icelandic singer/songwriter Toggi has been a quite influential figure on the Icelandic music scene for the last 5 years, or since the release of his debut album Puppy late in 2006. Filled with catchy and melodic acoustic-guitar driven pop songs the album received glowing reviews in the Icelandic press and sold well. It spawned 4 crossover hits on Icelandic radio stations and was nominated to the Icelandic music awards for best cover art. After the success of the debut album Toggi became quite sought after as a songwriter and lyricist, and collaborated with some of Icelands most famous singers and musicians. One of those partnerships was with Iceland‘s brightest local pop star, the gay disco icon Páll Óskar. Toggi wrote two songs for his platinum-selling 2007 album „Allt fyrir Ástina“ and produced them along with his longtime partner in crime, Bjarki Jónsson. A few months later, Icelands indie-darlings Hjaltalín covered one of those songs, called „Þú komst við hjartað í mér“ and it became an instant classic. The song was performed at every other wedding and every major event in 2008. It stayed at the number 1 spot at every radio station in Iceland (and they are surprisingly many) for many weeks and made Hjaltalín into a major force on the Icelandic music scene. Finally it was awarded the Song of the year award at the Icelandic music awards. Since 2008 Toggi has been recording his sophomore album along with his band. The new material has a bigger, more dynamic sound to it than his debut album, and takes quite a different direction lyricly. While Puppy was more sincere and sweet, the new material has more humour in it and packs a heavier punch. It touches on darker themes, such as domestic violence, sexual abuse, insecurites, death and of course, the Icelandic economic crisis but always from an unusual perspective and with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour. Since the summer of 2008 Toggi has released 6 singles off the new album, all of which have met with great success at Icelandi radio stations. Toggi‘s sophomore album; the 14 track Wonderful Secrets was released in Iceland in november 2011 along with a 12 song digital album titled Private Confessions & Clumsy Poetry, consisting of acoustic versions of popular songs, demos and b-sides. It is available for international download at toggi.bandcamp.com. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.