Q3A with Island Songs by Ólafur Arnalds

Brueder Selke are delighted to present Island Songs by Ólafur Arnalds:

Ólafur Arnalds: Island Songs on Mercury Classics

7 weeks: 7 towns: 7 collaborations: 7 songs

A portrait of Icelandic people through music and film

From the remotest northern village, to the beautiful and desolate Westfjords, via the buzzing bars of Reykjavik, Icelanders make up one of the most musical nations on earth. But why do these people, who have one of the highest rates of ensembles per capita in the world, choose to live in such difficult conditions? How does it affect their music-making? In Island Songs, the innovative and brilliant composer Ólafur Arnalds (BAFTA Award winner for Broadchurch) explores the vibrant artistic life of his fellow countrymen and women in a fascinating music/film portrait.

Over the course of seven weeks in the summer, Arnalds will be travelling to seven very different locations to collaborate with seven diverse music-makers, including the organist of a tiny and remote church, a well-known pop star, a successful Hollywood film composer, and a village teacher. Acclaimed director Baldvin Z (BBC 4’s Trapped and Life Through a Fish Bowl) will film each performance live. The director will simultaneously create a feature-length music film tackling the themes of community, geography and creativity.

All material will be released on Mercury Classics. Each week an audio track and live performance video will be recorded and published via digital video and streaming services, with the feature length music-film set for release in 2017.

Arnalds emphasizes that the project aims to focus on the astonishing creativity of Iceland’s inhabitants rather than on the sublime landscape of their homeland.

‘Yes, Iceland is beautiful, but plenty of films have shown that already,’ he says. ‘I think it’s much more interesting to consider the harshness of the conditions, and how they affect us as artists. The volcano is breathtaking, but it comes with lava that drowns our towns in ash. The glacier is stunning, but it comes with cold winters that leave us cut off for months. So why do people live here? And why do so many of us make music? I’m going to explore that musical energy.’

Arnalds has become celebrated for his spare and haunting musical style, which evocatively mixes elements of ambient, classical, and electronic sounds. Island Songs has its roots in the enormous success of two previous Mercury Classics projects, For Now I Am Winter and The Chopin Project, which both involved a large degree of collaboration: the former with singer Arnór Dan, the latter with concert pianist Alice Sara Ott. He has also created fully improvised projects, including Found Songs (2009) and Living Room Music (2011), which both involved the daily release of new works over a seven-day period.

Island Songs is larger in scale that any thing Arnalds has previously attempted, and he has spent many months searching for suitable collaborators.

‘What I really wanted to do is draw up a realistic picture of the whole Icelandic music scene. Among the people I’ll be working with is a poet who writes lyrics which are heard all over the world, a composer who left behind a major Hollywood career to return to Iceland, and an organist from a town of just 150 people. And most of them have other jobs too: they’re famers and teachers. It’s an amazing mix – and each of them has a fascinating story to tell.’

The collaborative aspect is slightly different from Arnald’s previous total-improvisation projects. Because of the number of people involved (one of the participants is a large ensemble) a certain amount of the music will be prepared in advance.

‘People will need to know what they’re doing and make plans, of course. So I’m writing the basic theme and structure of each song beforehand, and deciding on instrumentation, but I’m consciously not finishing it. I’ll leave as much room as possible for decisions on the day.’

A major added element to Island Songs is the participation of film-maker Baldvin Z. He and his crew will be continuously filming the proceedings, and aiming to capture the final performance of each song in audaciously long one-take shots. His material will be uploaded online each week with the audio release.

The material has culminated in a one-hour music film, which includes not just the finished performances, but craft a film that reflects the amazing energy, huge ambition – and above all, the fascinating personalities – involved in the entire project.