Iceland’s Olof Arnalds visited TT the Bear’s earlier this month for an intimate early show. Unlike the multi-person Icelandic bands Múm and Sigur Rós with whom Arnalds has performed and collaborated, Arnalds sat alone on the stage with only her voice and her hands to share her songs. Still the performance had the feeling of a duet between Arnalds and the variety of stringed instruments she played. Each had a story, from the parlor guitar Arnalds is borrowing from a repair shop until its elderly owner who “may not be with us anymore” can be found, to the charango made out of the shell of an armadillo, which “is a little bit brutal, but it sounds very beautiful.”
With a stunning voice both gentle and otherworldly, Arnalds explored everything from her own songs, to traditional folk melodies, and even songs by Bruce Springsteen and Caetano Veloso. Bringing a calmness and peacefulness not common in Cambridge’s Central Square, let alone in a rock club like TT’s, Arnalds’ voice drew her audience closer and closer, inviting them into her beautiful and delicate world.
Towards the end of her performance, Arnalds paused to consider the armadillo’s fate, and then added “I, myself could not picture a better afterlife than becoming an instrument.” For the audience who had been listening to Arnalds’ voice flying like a bird above their heads for the past hour, there was no question that she already was one in this life.
Arnald’s US tour has ended, so encourage her to make another trip by buying a copy of her new album Við og Við. In the meantime, enjoy a Foundwaves Live Video Premiere of her performance of “Madrid” at TT’s and stay tuned to Foundwaves for more videos from her stunning concert…
Ólöf Arnalds – “Madrid”
Concert Video by Extraneous Noise
Also check out the musical video piece, “Eins og sagt er” ( or “As they say” in English), Ólöf created for her graduation project from the Icelandic Art Academy’s music department.
Here is Ólöf’s explanation for the project: “In the summer of 2005 I interviewed 17 people of different nationalities that all had in common to be living in New York. My intention was to get to know peoples attitudes towards their origin, their mother tongue and inquire about the meaning of music in their lives. Those 17 individuals also compiled few sentences in their own language that dealt with music and read them out loud for me. I owe these people an eternal debt of gratitude. The Icelandic I sing in the final section of the piece is a part of a poem by my father, Einar S. Arnalds, which later became the last song of my album, Við og við. In composing the melodies I mainly worked from the rhythm of the sentences as my interlocutors spoke them. Therefore this piece is in great part theirs rather than mine which left me with the task of changing their words into music which is then played together in unison.”