ARY Is Your New Favorite DIY Nordic Pop Star

If you're into Nordic artists who make pop just a touch weirder, it's a safe bet that you will be into ARY. The Norwegian singer-songwriter's third single "Childhood Dreams" is a sparse and skin-tingling bop about being a perpetual daydreamer, built around looping vocals and a gentle kick. Its Stian Lyng-directed video — premiering above — is just as simple, and just as mesmerising, focusing entirely on the pull of ARY's performance.

In an email to The FADER, ARY explained how both the song and video came from her letting go of perfection and embracing a DIY feel. "The original draft of the song was made in an hour. It was a bassline, a kick, and some quick vocals. When [producer] Coucheron and I tried to finish the track for its release, I rewrote the whole song and he redid the production, and somewhere along the way we lost the essence. So we ended up using that first draft. Even though the sounds are unpolished and the lyrics are half-assed, we weren’t able to recreate or change the song for the better. And in that spirit I made a video. It cost 250kr [Norwegian Krone], 'cause the only expense was buying 10 bottles of Pepsi Max for my friends."