Music

The flurry of commemorative material that’s been released in the wake of Avicii’s 2018 death expands today (June 13), with the release of a new photobook, Avicii: The life and music of Tim Bergling.

The book comes from publisher Bokförlaget Max Ström, which producers large-format photobooks, and features more than 200 images of the artist born Tim Bergling. Through these photos, many of them which have never before been made public, the book traces the artist’s life from his childhood in Sweden to global superstardom. See exclusive images from Avicii: The life and music of Tim Bergling, below.

The book, which is currently available in Europe (with a U.S. publishing date to be announced soon), was created in collaboration with the Tim Bergling Foundation, a nonprofit founded by Bergling’s parents, Klas Bergling and Anki Lidén, in the wake of his 2018 death. Based in Sweden, the organization advocates for mental health wellness and suicide prevention among young people.

The new book comes days after the debut of a new Avicii documentary, Avicii – I’m Tim at the Tribeca Festival in New York City. The book includes a foreword by Swedish journalist Måns Mosesson, the author of the 2022 Avicii biography Tim: The Official Biography Of Avicii. Read an exclusive excerpt of this foreword about the producer’s time at an Ibiza rehabilitation facility in 2015 below.

The moment of reckoning arrived deep in the Ibizan woods, surrounded by tall pines and fragrant orchards. Following a difficult conversation with concerned friends and colleagues, Tim Bergling entered rehab in the autumn of 2015, just as his second album Stories was finally released.

At long last he had time to catch up on his sleep at the facility, which was located on a converted farm. The garden, with its bright palm lilies and hibiscus bushes, stretched out beyond his window. A few stone steps led down to the consulting rooms.

Tim built a little campsite for himself up on the rooftop, staff helped him lug a sun lounger up there. At dusk he would gaze out over the Mediterranean shrouded in autumn mist, considering his life and all the experiences that had led him to that particular place.

One day, the treatment director took a book off the shelf in the consulting room. It was by Eckhart Tolle, a German self-help author. Entitled The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, it set out the principles of living in the present moment, also called mindfulness.

Tim liked what he read. He sought out the roots of these ideas and learned that much of Tolle’s writings drew on ancient Buddhist teachings – concepts that Tim enjoyed discussing in therapy. The Eastern practice was based on paying attention to the sensations flowing through one’s body, recognising difficult or embarrassing feelings without judging or repressing them. By acknowledging stress, the idea was that one could gradually free oneself from it.

Tim practiced sitting silently in meditation. He tried to tune in to every smack against the punching bag down by the pool. Boxing also helped him to let go of what had become a highly destructive lifestyle. During his nightly excursions among the wild rabbits in the surrounding woods, a new idea started to emerge in his head. It was a decision even he had not anticipated. An idea that would previously have seemed so impossible, he would have waved it away before it had a chance to establish itself in his consciousness.

He would stop touring.

It was a drastic move, but it immediately felt right. Playing live sets did not benefit him as a person. They were just a source of stress and drained him of joy. He would probably always love making music. In fact, that was one of the reasons why he needed to make a change. If he stopped touring, that would free up energy for composing music, which was what he really longed to do.

He also decided to split from his manager Arash Pournouri. Their relationship had been growing increasingly fraught for some time. After three months in rehab, Tim Bergling left Ibiza in great shape and full of confidence. He posted an announcement on Instagram for his three million followers.

My path has been filled with success, but it hasn’t come without its bumps.
I know I am blessed to be able to travel all around the world and perform, but

I have too little left for the life of a real person behind the artist.

A new life began to take shape. Tim continued travelling around the world, but he no longer did so as a one-man entertainment industry. Instead, he hung out with monkeys on Madagascar, took selfies with gorillas in Uganda and floated on a barge along the Amazon deep into the jungle.

In the spring of 2016, he embarked on a special bus trip with a bunch of Swedish musicians. They set off from the west coast of the USA and headed east. They stopped off in national parks and carried their instruments across the rugged terrain. In the great outdoors, they wrote elegant, laid-back songs filled with rediscovered freedom. Many would later end up on Avīci (01), an EP Tim wanted to centre on the human condition. He outlined how he wanted the project to be presented. Ambitious films, inspired by the teachings of Buddhism, would trace a human journey from darkness into light.

This was his focus now: people’s destructive thought patterns and ways to break out of them. How to emerge from addiction and find a peaceful existence.

A new life, in other words.