Apparatjik

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Apparatjik is a multinational band formed in 2008 as a supergroup. It brings together Guy Berryman from Coldplay, Magne Furuholmen from a-ha, Jonas Bjerre from Mew, and Martin Terefe. The name means “agent of the apparatus,” a nod to apparatchik.

The band started for a charity project called Songs for Survival for Survival International. Their first track, Ferreting, was produced by Martin Terefe and Molly Oldfield and used as the theme music for a BBC2 Amazon series. They then worked in Magne Furuholmen’s studio in Norway and shared music on Myspace and YouTube.

On November 30, they released their first official track, Electric Eye, from an upcoming album on their website. Apparatjik’s first live show was at the club transmediale festival in Berlin in early 2010, where they performed inside a specially built cube. They released their debut album, We Are Here, for digital download the same day.

Their first public performances outside Berlin happened in Frankfurt in March 2011. They also released the EP 4 Can Keep A Secret If 3 Of Them Are Dead and re-released We Are Here on iTunes in June 2010. After performing at Norway’s Flø festival in June, they played in London on September 23, 2010, and the cube was moved to the Serpentine Galleries in Hyde Park for a Future Contemporaries event.

BBC Radio 1 aired their song Datascroller in June 2010. In late 2010, Magne hinted at more exciting things to come in 2011. On February 11, 2011, they started agreeneryouniverse, a project inviting people to plant a tree and create art online, with the first 1,000 participants receiving new music.

A download-only single, Combat Disco Music, was released on March 28, 2011. On November 11, 2011, they released their second album, Square Peg In A Round Hole, as a free iPad app, and four days later it was given away as part of agreeneryouniverse. They later collaborated with Canadian singer Lowell, releasing the EP If You Can, Solve This Jumble in 2012, with Lowell on lead vocals for every track.

In 2020, they shared a short music clip called “20 3 20,” hinting at a new release in connection with the Julia Pastrana project. A single, “Julia,” followed on March 20, 2020, with a lyric video.