Bio: Ari B. Ingber, an American songwriter and performer, was born in Maryland and grew up in a Jewish immigrant family. His father was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany, where Ingber’s grandparents met and married after surviving the Holocaust. As one of their first significant family purchases as Americans, they bought an accordion. Ingber’s father took a keen interest in music, particularly the drums, and began performing as a backing band member for acts like Wilson Pickett and The Drifters in the nightclubs of D.C. during his youth. Though Ingber’s father eventually chose a more secure career, he passed his passion for music down to his children.
In the early 2000s, following 9/11 but before the rise of social media, an “indie rock” renaissance swept through New York City. Living in the city during this period, Ingber witnessed his artistic interests intensify. He composed, performed, and toured with various projects and musicians, many of them with his brother. Ingber’s time in New York culminated in two collaborations: an unreleased film/album with Jonas Mekas, widely known as “the godfather of American avant-garde cinema,” called Emergency Bible Study, and a duet with folk legend Ed Askew of Ingber’s song Driftwood, released on NFT.
Ingber relocated to California in 2020 and began releasing music under his name. So far, he has released six records: Tiemann Place (2021), Turquoise Mountain Lion (2022), Sunday Feathers (2022), Street Magic (2022), Only Traveling Vol. 1 (2023), and Moon Phases (2023). His music blurs the boundaries between traditional folk, country, blues, and experimental genres, sounding simultaneously age-old and avant-garde.
On his California records, he has worked with a venerable list of L.A. musicians, including Michael Harris (HAIM, Fleet Foxes), Steven Mertens (Moldy Peaches), Sam Skloff (Angel Olsen, St. Vincent), Delicate Steve, Andrew Maguire (Hand Habits), and many others.