Decca - Classics
Ólafur Arnalds - Island Songs
Pickup available at 12 Bar Music and Social - Exeter
Usually ready in 24 hours
Island Songs began as a simple premise: for seven consecutive weeks, Ólafur Arnalds would travel to a different town in Iceland, find a local collaborator, and write and record a new piece in a single day. The results, filmed and released weekly, ranged from a solo brass player to a choir to Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir of Of Monsters and Men — each piece shaped as much by its location and collaborator as by Arnalds himself.
What could have been a gimmick holds together as a genuinely coherent record, largely because Arnalds' own writing — patient, melodic, unmistakably Icelandic in its sense of space — runs through every piece regardless of who's playing on it. It's as close as his catalogue gets to a travelogue, and one of the most purely personal records he's made.
This reissue marks the album's first time on colour vinyl, pressed in green.
For fans of: Jóhann Jóhannsson, Nils Frahm, Hania Rani.
Tracklist
Details
Barcode: 0602465324013
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