Reykjavík Grapevine - jan. 2019, Side 20

20 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 01— 2019
ARTIST OF THE YEAR:
Ólafur Arnalds
2018 felt like the year when composer, musician
and performer Ólafur Arnalds came into his own
and stepped out into the limelight. After years of
collaborations, soundtrack work, tours, and a notice-
able ever-growing popularity, he dropped his best
album to date—the thrillingly melodic and minimal
‘re:member’—which took off vertically, picking up
positive attention from Rolling Stone, NPR and KEXP, to
name just a few, and selling out shows in some of the
world’s finest concert halls.
This stellar year was a long time coming. “It’s my first
actual full length album for five years,” says Ólafur. An
ever relaxed figure wearing a music note t-shirt, he
speaks in an open and relaxed way about his work, and
his world. “I’ve done a lot of stuff and been on a really
nice trajectory, but I haven’t released something that
said ‘This is who I am’ for a while. And that’s why albums
are still important in this... whatever world we’re living
in. That’s what did it this year, and made things explode
a little bit.”
BETWEEN THE LINES
‘Re:member’ feels like the culmination of a lot of work.
It’s sensitively written to be instantly appealing and
catchy, whilst maintaining a confident sparseness in
the sound. The melodies are never crowded or over-
worked, but rather poised and well-judged.
“That’s actually the hardest part,” smiles Ólafur.
“Essentially I’m trying to make pop music… but not
actual pop music. There are catchy melodies some-
times, but it’s so important to leave that space. If I
don’t, it’s not going to be me any more. To find the
space within melodies or concepts that can still be
catchy, and grab onto that, is the most challenging
part to me—but also the most rewarding.”
JERKING OFF SYNTHESIZERS
When it comes to his musical development over the
years since his last solo album, Ólafur speaks respect-
fully of his collaborators. “You learn something from
each collaboration,” he says. “Every collaborator brings
something to the table. This album is all of that coming
together—it’s everything I learned in the last few years
coming out.”
Ólafur’s shows have become well known for techni-
cal innovation and elaborate staging. He speaks fondly
of the collaborators who help it happen. “A lot of the
work I’ve done has been to create a team,” says Ólafur.
“I’ve come to realise that music is more than music. If
you look at your favourite musicians of the last fifty
years, they all have something else about them, that’s
a little bit more. An obvious example is David Bowie. I
can do the music, but I have come to realise that I can’t
do that part alone. So the art becomes to create the
team.”
“It’s about seeing the good in people, and finding
what they can bring to the table,” he says. “This goes
for everything from my management, to the label, to
the technicians on tour, and the sound and lights. I
don’t design the lights, but it’s a huge part of what I’m
known for now—this visual experience. So my art is
to find these people, and not just sit in my studio and
pick my nose whilst jerking off some synthesisers.”
GLOBAL CAVE SONGS
Ólafur is also highly engaged with his audience via
social media, opening up his life and process to his
listeners, including alternative versions, live streams
of the recording process, and moments from tour.
As a result of this openness and willingness to share
and engage, a community has formed around his work.
“My social media followers are definitely a community,”
he says. “They talk to each other, become friends, share
things, create art together. “As many faults as social
media has—and there are many—it’s a way to change
the idea that the musicians have this godlike image,
and show that music is about community, connection
and expressing things we cannot express with words.
Social media has made that aspect global—it’s no
longer you sitting playing for your friends in a cave.”
PROVING YOUR WORTH
Such international success has made Ólafur a well
known public figure in his homeland—a phenomenon
that he’s still negotiating. “Iceland can be so weird that
way,” he laughs. “Not everyone listens to your music,
but you become a kind of known figure. I often wonder,
‘What is my place here?’ I noticed that people now put
my name alongside Björk and Sigur Rós when they’re
writing an article about Iceland, and that makes me
feel like I need to prove that I’m worth what they’re
saying about me. That’s partly why I went all in on the
recent shows here, in Harpa, and do it properly. It’s
that little ego saying I need to prove that I’m worth
what people are saying.”
The shows met with rapturious praise from those
in attendance and cemented Ólafur’s reputation as
a homegrown star. As he embarks on a long tour of
the US and Europe in 2019, our richly deserving Artist
of the Year can step out into the world knowing he’s
more than earned his stripes at home in Iceland—and
from here on out, the sky’s the limit. JR
“I haven’t
released
something
that said ‘This
is who I am’ for
five years... that’s
what made things
explode.”