Ólöf Arnalds "Innundir skinni" 2010****

on stage at Rotown

I saw Ólöf Arnalds a few months ago at the Rotown Club in Rotterdam. There were maybe 70 or 80 attendants that night and Olof played her songs on an acoustic guitar and sang.  She has a beautiful voice, although a bit too soft and dreamlike. Coming from Iceland, she will inevitably get compared to Bjork. Does she sound like her? Well, maybe a little bit when she sings in Icelandic. The singer she reminds me the most is not Bjork but Joanna Newsom. On stage she was warm and relaxed but rather awkward, like a fairy who had just had her first mug of beer (although more probably she had just sampled the product at the local coffeeshops). The music is basically melodic folk with acoustic guitar and vocals on the forefront. Opener "Vinur minn" is a childlike singalong with a choir actually singing la-la-la's. "Innundir skinni" is a simple and beautiful folk song, given an otherworldly quality by Ólöf's voice and Icelandic language. In the next (English) song she tries to persuade a friend not to immigrate to America because it is a "Crazy car"(?). "Vinkonur" is sung in a very high voice and sounds almost Chinese, "Jonathan" has a medieval quality and "Madrid" is enriched with strings. "Surrender" features a high profile collaborator in the form of Bjork and provides the high point of the album, where weirdness and charm are magically transformed into pop material. File next to Sigur Ros, Joanna Newsom, Devendra Barnhart and Jeff Buckley.
**** for Innundir skinni,Crazy car,Svif birki, Surrender
*** for Vinur minn, Vinkonur, Jonathan, Madrid, Allt i guddi