Olof Arnalds - Innundir Skinni

  by Adrian Huggins

published: 8 / 7 / 2010

Label: One Little Indian
Format: 7"

intro

Excellent vinyl only single from Icelandic singer Olof Arnalds, who has drawn comparisons with Bjork and Sigur Ros

Olof Arnalds is currently being touted as the best thing to come out of Iceland since Sigur Ros and Bjork, although one would hope as the other main thing that has come out of Iceland in recent times is the volcanic ash that she is preferable to a plane grounding natural phenomenon. Nevertheless the amount of acts that run off the tongue from Iceland is pretty short, but any musician in the world would surely be on cloud 9, (Pun intended), to be held up against such incredible musical forces as Bjork and Sigur Ros. Those two artists alone seem to make up for the lack of the country’s export of musicians in being two of the most original, inspiring and beautiful artists on the planet. It begs the question what do they put in the water up there that inspire such brilliance and other worldiness, not to mention the ability to make mountains explode. Olof Arnalds is perfectly fitting of her comparisons, although I think that a lot of it is down to the fact she is from the same country than them rather than that she sounds particularly like either. The actual music on this single is really gentle. It has a classic English folk guitar sound and sounds like the sound of nature and something truly spectacular, which is fitting as ‘Innundir Skinni’ was written about the beauty of childbirth and the concept of something growing inside you. It is a beautiful song sung in her native tongue to give it that mysterious air that you find in Sigur Ros’ music. Although my Icelandic isn’t great it doesn’t seem to matter as it is delicate and gorgeous song that doesn’t need to be explained. With Kjartan Sveinsson and David Por Jonsson (Sigur Ros) producing her forthcoming second album it is clear that we can expect more of the same magic on the full length, which is leaving me feeling very excited.

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