Icelandic singer-songwriter Ólöf Arnalds was recently featured in NPR’s All Things Considered. Host Jonathan Richman discussed Arnalds’s upcoming album and played a clip from one of her new songs, “Surrender,” which features Björk.
Ólöf Arnalds. Photo by Páll Stefánsson.
According to icelandmusic.is, Björk has made her admiration for Arnalds clear, stating “she has a really idiosyncratic sense of chord structure and a voice somewhere between a child’s and an old woman’s. She has her own individuality, and the best is yet to come.”
Arnalds’s solo debut, Vid og vid continues to garner widespread acclaim. Produced by Sigur Rós’ Kjartan Sveinsson, Vid og vid was named Album of the Year in Iceland in 2007.
The album placed 38th on Paste Magazine’s Top 100 Albums list, eMusic recently named it one of the 100 best albums of the decade, while MOJO proclaimed Arnalds as “Reykjavík’s answer to Kate Bush.”
Arnalds recently finished mixing her second album, Innundir Skinni at Sundlaugin Studios with Kjartan Sveinsson as producer.
Innundir skinni features more elaborate arrangements and instrumentation than Vid og vid, with vocals sung both in English and Icelandic. Innundir skinni is set for worldwide release this spring.
You can listen to the NPR show here.
Click here to read an interview with Ólöf Arnalds.
