Ellen Arkbro

• Name — Ellen Arkbro • Born — 1990 • Birthplace — Stockholm, Sweden • Genre — Minimalism, microtonal music, drone • Website — ellenarkbro.com • Instrument — * Pipe organ • Voice

Arkbro was born in Stockholm and grew up singing in choir school, playing in bands, and eventually studying jazz as a singer. As a 20 year old, Arkbro went on to study at Elektronmusikstudion, and later received a degree in composition of electronic music from the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. As part of earning that degree, Arkbro spent time in Berlin studying composition with Marc Sabat in Berlin, studies which focused on the theory and practice of tuning. In 2014, Arkbro studied privately with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela in New York.

For her 2017 debut album For Organ and Brass, Arkbro uses the Sherer-Orgel organ at St. Stephen's Church in Tangermünde, Germany, an instrument dating to 1624, in a church dating to 1118. The LP comprises recordings of her compositions in just intonation for renaissance organ, horn, trombone and microtonal tuba.

CHORDS (2019) was designed to draw attention to the way sound exists in space, the way tonality and harmony affect an environment. The music is intended for large speakers, allowing it to take over a home and envelop the listener. Pitchfork finds that the album "delves even deeper into microtonal interplay, balancing heady theoretical terrain with a rare emotional resonance. [Arkbro's] music is infused with a profound emotionality that transcends its heady origins. Passing through the gates of extreme rigor, CHORDS finds private infinity in a handful or stretched-out drones."

Sounds while waiting (2021) is an album that explores the long drawn out manner of playing chords in a resonant space. It focuses on exploring the depths of a "rough, focused and yet strangely transparent" form of "texturality". The instrumentation consists of organ and cymbals and the album contains the two-parter "Sculpture", along with 2 others.

I get along without you very well (2022), a collaboration with Swedish multi-instrumentalist Johan Graden, is an LP of songs that introduces Arkbro as a vocalist. The instrumentation is percussion, clarinet, organ, and brass. Each piece is, in its way, meandering, improvisatory, and drawn-out to an extreme, "wistfully throwing up a handful of ideas and letting them float in the breeze, employing the faintest of structures to lure them back to earth."

• For Organ and Brass (2017, Subtext Recordings) • CHORDS (2019, Subtext Recordings) • Sounds while waiting (2021, self-released) • Sounds while waiting (2023, Superior Viaduct) • Nightclouds (2025, Blank Forms)

• Golden Offence Orchestra – Ode to Pauline Oliveros (2013, XKatedral) • Hästköttskandalen – Spacegirls (2015, Fylkingen Records) • Ellen Arkbro, Caterina Barbieri, Kali Malone – XKatedral Volume III (2016, XKatedral) • Ellen Arkbro & Johan Graden – I get along without you very well (2022, Thrill Jockey) • Ellen Arkbro & Hanne Lippard & Hampus Lindwall – How Do I Know If My Cat Likes Me? (2025, Blank Forms, La Becque Editions)