On the edge of Folk, Jazz, Rock, Pop and Blues, the international singer-songwriter Asaf Avidan merges his introspective poetry with a singular gravelly, piercing voice to create a style and career free from comparisons. A quintessence of raw emotion unconfined by labels or genres.

Nothing was linear or usual in Asaf Avidan’s life. Born in Jerusalem, raised in Jamaica, and finally settling in the countryside of Italy and then France. A son to diplomat parents on the move, his childhood, a constant motion of rooting and uprooting. He often notes that his disregard to, what he calls, “constructed artistic boundaries”, begins in this blurring of borders, cultures and peoples in his formative years.

Later on, he would study cinema, become a top voice actor, graduate from art academy, be diagnosed and survive cancer, become a professional animator, all before the age of 24.

At 26, following a difficult breakup, Avidan walked away from his cushy animator’s job, his apartment and his previous life, and picked up a guitar for the first time. Those first songs, described by him once as “surgery without anaesthetics performed with a dull axe” would mark the start of a career that spans almost two decades and an entire globe.

Since then, he has sold out endless tours in coveted venues like Opera Garnier and The Acropolis, headlined the biggest festivals in Europe, opened for Bob Dylan, reached multi- platinum certified album sales, and developed a fan base of millions of avid listeners and spectators… All of this driven by the same urgency and emotional intensity that had shaped his very first songs, now carried into his new release.

While he would oppose the use of the word “purist”, Avidan vehemently refuses to use computers, autotunes and playbacks in his live shows and live recordings, and instead reimagines the songs to fit whatever the show allows, as demonstrated in his solo tours and “In a Box“ sessions, where he recreates his songs completely alone.

Uncompromising about his truth both on and off stage, he is known as an avid vegan and animal activist and an outspoken polyamorous troubadour that preaches the sacredness of love and relationships. Avidan’s interviews and his stance about the role of artists in society, especially in recent years, have become sought after almost as much as his music.

Together with his life partner, Avidan owns and operates an animal rescue farm in France. With “Different Pulses Sanctuary”, they share their work and the animals’ lives on social media to encourage empathy and compassion.

EVERYTHING HAPPENED FAST

In 2006, at the age of 26, reeling from the failure of a long-term relationship, he picked up a guitar, taught himself some basic chords and released his musical debut, “Now That You’re Leaving”, a six song EP born from a visceral need to have an immediate outlet to what seemed unbearable emotions. Distributing his self-printed cd’s by hand from shop to shop, he began performing in small clubs, quickly gathering a devout following. Some of the audience in the first shows would later become his touring and recording musicians.

In 2008, now performing as Asaf Avidan and the Mojos, he released his first full LP, “The Reckoning”, on his newly formed and self owned record label, Telmavar Records. The album, a raw and gritty blend of folk, rock, and blues, introduced Avidan’s voice to the public and the band quickly built a cult following and a name as one of the best live performances around. The album raced to gold and later platinum status, breaking records for an independent release. Later, it would blow up and go on to sell millions, but that’s still around the corner at this point.

As the buzz spread, major labels from across Europe took notice of what Rolling Stones Magazine was heralding as – the “New Messiah of Rock n’ Roll”.

In 2009, their first major tour saw them performing everywhere, from the Brandenburg Bridge in Berlin to major festivals in Beijing. Whether in small clubs or huge festival stages, Avidan’s performance became a must see. In that same year, Avidan and the Mojos signed with Columbia Germany, to release the new material Avidan had been working on.

“Poor Boy Lucky Man”, out just one year after “The Reckoning”, proved that Avidan is here to stay. Like its predecessor, the album boasted 15 tracks with influences of Folk, Jazz, and Rock, but it also showed Avidan’s interest in more complex arrangements and production.

“Through the Gale” followed in 2010 and was the last album Avidan would record and release with the Mojos. In later interviews, he explained that working with the same musicians restricted his writing and composing to a specificity of genre that he did not wish to be confined to.

AN ARTIST REBORN

In 2012, leaving those anchors behind, a new Avidan emerged on the scene with “Different Pulses”, a tapestry of musical genres, blending folk and indie with 50’s pop, cinematic and electronic music, all overseen and glued together by his broken vocals and intimate philosophical musings. Relationships are still part of the themes, but a deeper questioning of hope and failure form what will be his textual playground in the next years.

But just before the first single of the album was to be released, an underground remix, unauthorized by Avidan, started burning the dance floors throughout Europe. A young and aspiring DJ Wankelmut had bought a copy of “The Reckoning” at a concert and remixed the nominal track from it without the artist’s consent. Initially, Avidan tried to push back against what he calls the “reduction of his song”. But with pressure from audiences, as well as the lack of ability to control the viral spread of the song on the internet, he finally agreed to green-light an official release by Sony, and the song exploded in charts across Europe, peaking at no.1 in 14 different countries, selling millions of copies to reach multiple platinum status, and becoming part of the pop canon of the decade.

“Different Pulses” was delayed due to the remix charting the radios, but when finally released with Polydor France later that year, it quickly became a huge hit in France and other major European countries. That year, Avidan was also invited to perform in the Vatican and at San Remo Festival, where he received a rare double standing ovation and was asked to repeat his performance.

“Gold Shadow” followed in 2015, a fatalistic breakup album that reflects a big change in Avidan’s love life. The breakup is not only from his then life-partner, but also from what he calls being “a serial monogamist”. If one was to look in the liner notes of the printed album, they would find a thank you to writer Jonathan Safran Foer, who helped Avidan break his writer’s block with personal conversations about relationships and breakups.

In the following years, Avidan became outspokenly polyamorous and his next album, “The Study on Falling”, released in 2017, is a melancholic tribute to the hardships and beauty of love, whatever form they may take. Musically, the album explores Avidan’s Americana influences as he traveled to record the album in LA, with musicians that created the soundscape of his musical upbringing.

Throughout this period, the “In a Box” sessions begin, with Avidan closing himself for 48 hours in beautiful acoustic spaces, usually by himself, to reinterpret his songs in raw and unproduced versions, showcasing his mastery of loop equipment and his ability to hold a song completely by himself. There are no edits or tinkering, just live performances, filmed up close. These intimate sessions would quickly become fan-favourites and spark off solo tours that continue to interlace his band tours to this day.

WOLVES AND HORSES

A couple of days before Christmas Eve of 2018, newspapers in Italy report Avidan to have been badly injured and in the hospital, following a violent attack from his adopted Wolf-dog rescue. Initially, the function of his right arm is in question and one doctor goes so far as to suggest amputation, but Avidan, many stitches and months of physiotherapy later, returns to music, showing little signs of his injuries. That year, wild wolves also hunt down one of his horses, and devastated, he returns home and pens down “Lost Horse” and begins work on a new album.

In 2020, between waves of Covid lockdowns, “Anagnorisis” was released. The album, written and partially recorded in the artist’s Italian villa, actively steps away from the usual influences of Dylan, Cohen and Nina Simone and, instead, takes new inspiration from a tapestry of odd elements, like nineties hip-hop, David Bowie, Amy Winehouse and modern pop recording approaches. Jonathan Safran Foer pens a short story as an introduction to the album, and Wim Wenders directs the video for the nominal track.

In these years Avidan also writes a song for Alfonzo Cuaron’s “Roma” and composes the soundtrack for Melanie Laurent’s film “Les Balles des Follies”. While many of his songs have been licensed to series and films before, these are the first to have been written specifically for them.

THE GREAT ABYSS

In 2024, following a personal invitation from Brad Pitt, Avidan goes into a writing retreat in Miraval Estate and manages to break his 4 year writer’s block, penning the songs that would become UNFURL. The album – an ambitious collage of vintage cinema music, rap, jazz, and folk, draws heavily on influences from Hitchcock era thrillers, and is recorded with a full forty piece orchestra. Avidan co-produces it to oversee that none of the meticulous details in this maximalist dreamscape get lost. The album’s themes draw from Jungian experimentation of guided imagination to allow a dissolution of the Ego and the self into the great expanse of the subconscious and the infinite mysteries.

The Album is released in 2025 and is toured throughout Europe to sold out concerts and appearances in the most prominent festivals of the continent, comfortably travelling between the esteemed Jazz festivals like “North Jazz” and “Gent” and the open air pop giants like “Paleo” and “Main Square”, showcasing his ability to captivate any size or type of audience.

Alongside the band tour, there are also the full orchestra shows, now added to the live tour program, reflecting the expanding scope of his work, both in the studio and on stage.

2025 also sees Avidan appointed Chevalier (Knight) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture, a formal distinction recognizing individuals for distinguished artistic or literary achievement or their contribution to the advancement of arts and letters in France and worldwide. This honor represents official recognition by the French government of Avidan’s artistic contribution and adds a significant institutional distinction to his international career as a singer, songwriter and composer.

EXCAVATIONS

Filled with too many highlights for a few pages, Avidan’s career is as anomalous as his music. A complex tapestry of uncompromising passion and hard work that manages to reach a broad audience despite its complexity and uniqueness. Avidan’s themes mature over the years. From broken relationships and promised yet shattered love, Asaf’s reckoning, a dissection of himself through others, begins to evolve to the opposite. A deep human understanding of the other, through a meticulous and painful dissection of the self. His albums are often described as archeological layers, burrowing down with each excavation to a more ancient foundation, searching for a universal core we can all find ourselves in.