Arcana is a neoclassical darkwave band from Sweden, formed in 1993. They merged classically- and medievally-inspired instrumental music with occasional vocals to arrive at a richly atmospheric and dark musical tapestry. Previously signed to the Cold Meat Industry label, the original line-up consisted of Peter Bjärgö and Ida Bengtsson, but since 2002 it changed and featured Peter Bjärgö, Ann-Mari Thim, Stefan Eriksson, Cecilia Bjärgö and Mattias Borgh. Due to personal issues with Cold Meat Industry Peter dropped from the label and created his own label and mailorder called Erebus Odora. The label no longer exists, but the same Erebus Odora still exists as the studio where he is still active making his own music.
Arcana’s last live performance for a long time, probably for a year at first, took place on the 11th of December 2010 at the Dark Bombastic Evening II festival in Bucharest, Romania.
Since 1996, Arcana have been one of the leading bands in its genre. Peter Bjärgö (then Pettersson) started creating the music of Arcana after years of playing different kinds of music. The early idea of the music was based on the romantic image around the middle ages, through Peter’s own personal view. For the first three releases Ida Bengtsson joined Peter as the lead female vocal, and the band grew its fan base all over the world. In 2001 Ann-Mari Thim replaced Ida bengtsson as the new lead female vocalist along with Stefan Eriksson on keyboard and additional instruments. After the fourth release Peter Bjärgö left Cold Meat Industry, the first label of Arcana, to start an own label. The main reason was to preserve the personal touch of the music, Peter’s own sound and feelings, his creative independence.

In 2003 Peter wife, Cecilia Bjärgö, also joined the band on vocals and in 2006 Mattias Borgh entered the band as percussionist. In 2010 the band expanded in live situations when Núria Luis and Sergio Gamez Martinez (Narsilion, Der Blaue Reiter, Endless Asylum) joined Arcana on stage and since then the music is pure authentic with no backtracks. The contribution of Sergio and Núria has been so productive as they are now consider full members of the band. The difficulties of rehearsing is though an issue, since two members live in Spain. But with the musicality and experiences of live performances, this is nothing that holds us back.

The man behind it all is still Peter Bjärgö, the composer and producer of the music. The music has changed from album to album and today you can hear sounds from all parts of the world since the instruments Peter use are global.