Reykjavík Grapevine - nóv. 2020, Blaðsíða 13

just that I tend to create these big
ideas or concepts to put in front
of me and it’s easy to hide be-
hind them. I like to swing right
in the other direction sometimes.
I wanted to go back to before this
was my job, before there was any
pressure, and remember why I
was making music.”
Telling his own story
Working mostly with friends, the
relationship between Ólafur and
his collaborators was as intimate
as the music they created. “We
had the opportunity to take a lot
of time and really have a dialogue
about the music and what feelings
we were trying to evoke. We would
play it a few times and then listen
back to it and ask ‘How do we feel
right now when we hear this?’”
Ólafur recalls. “We went into that
aspect of it in a lot of detail, just
listening and talking. Because it
was so personal to me, I put even
more effort into the tiniest details
of performance.”
With every listen of ‘Some Kind
of Peace’ something new strikes
you: a string part you didn’t notice
before, or a sound effect barely
audible in the background, more
a feeling than a sound. As though
Ólafur is revealing himself little
bit by little bit, the listener learns
something new every time they
play the album. Soundbites from
his life, voice clips from the re-
cording process, or samples taken
of people and music that inspire
him litter the album.
“How do you place a voice in
voiceless music? How do you tell a
story in instrumental music?” he
asks. “I just have to add storytell-
ing elements to it. It can be voices
or the way something sounds.
That’s how I add my own voice, so
to speak, without actually singing,
and tell my personal story through
the album.”
A higher state of
consciousness
One of the more fascinating sam-
ples on the album appears in the
second track, the hypnotising
“Woven Song”. Using the voice of
an Amazonian medicine woman
singing a traditional song of the
Shipibo Tribe, the
idea of ritual and
the importance
of storytelling
and community
is highlighted
here. He hesitates
before speak-
ing, choosing his
words carefully,
but when Ólafur
talks about the
track, with excite-
ment and verve,
it’s clear that we
have reached the soul of his music.
“I can go into some depth
about it, but not the full depths,”
he begins, with a slightly nervous
laugh. “The moment I wrote that,
the moment I found the combina-
tion of that piano with that voice,
was the moment I knew the di-
rection this album was taking.
That song is really about the im-
portance of rituals—and music,
in essence, is a ritual. It’s a com-
munal ritual that we take to reach
a higher state of consciousness. I
have gotten very interested in all
sorts of rituals from all over the
world in the past few years—tak-
ing part in them and researching
them—and what we always find in
common everywhere is the impor-
tance of music in those rituals.”
Ólafur holds his cards close to
his chest. He wants to discuss the
track further, to talk more about
these rituals and communities he
finds so fascinating. But he stops
himself, careful not to give too
much away, guarding secrets of
experiences past
and projects yet
to come. He may
have opened up to
his listeners more
than ever before,
but he’s not quite
ready to reveal ev-
erything.
13The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 09— 2020
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“I wanted to go
back to before
this was my job,
before there was
any pressure,
and remember
why I was making
music.”
Music
‘Some Kind Of Peace’ is out now,
everywhere. You can get a hard
copy in the Grapevine Shop.