... And They Have Escaped the Weight of Darkness - Ólafur Arnalds

Track list:

1. Þú ert sólin 

2. Þú ert jörðin            
3. Tunglið             .
4. Loftið verður skyndilega kalt
5. Kjurrt
6. Gleypa okkur
7. Hægt, kemur ljósið
8. Undan hulu
9. Þau hafa sloppið undan þunga myrkursins

Runtime: 43 Minutes

Released: 2010

So this appears after ... Waltzing Alone because for some reason I had it in my library with no space after the ellipsis. I'm not playing with the order just yet!

I have not listened to this album in full in about the 4 years it has been since it released, and I cannot recall what turned me on to his work but even so I am supremely grateful that something did. Ólafur Arnalds is probably as close to classical music as I have in my library - not because I dislike classical music, but because I find identifying what I like, and more importantly which version played by whom to acquire to be almost impossible in the context of making acquisitions. 

Arnalds is contemporary and I like the "pop song" length of most tracks on this disc. I also imagine it to owe far more to the landscapes of his native Iceland than to any classical traditions. The music is full of space, which my mind's eye sees as big Icelandic skies. That space allows the notes to shine - listening now I have that sense that I can hear each note perfectly as if they were words in a conversation rather than the individual letters that composed those same.

I am excited to listen again. Þú ert sólin is emotional for me. Right around the time I picked this album up, my grandmother died after a battle with cancer and the melancholy yet melodic tune is forever associated with the feeling of bereavement from that. However it is not all sadness - the memory is tempered by the fact that she was ready to go, a day short of 90, and that she was better for no longer suffering. Somehow, this track manages to convey this feeling, too - so tightly wound is it with the immediate aftermath. I am certain that this is an interpretation brought by my mind and memories and I care not a whit if there was any such intent.

Of the album in general, it really is quite a sad work in tone. Strings and keys arranged to tug heartstrings and dampen eyes; the strings wailing, the keys lamenting. What I like about Arnalds though is that over, under or behind this you will find a treasure trove of other sounds... I swear I heard recordings of the sea just now... and was that recorded applause at the end of Kjurrt?

The formula for each track is much the same; a bit like beer: same ingredients in different mixes to get substantially different results. It's midday now, and I am off work sick, but otherwise that comparison would have me reaching for a Hook Norton ale... I have far too much in the house right now as a result of a birthday tour of the brewery 10 days ago. Fascinating place, still running with a lot of Victorian machinery and horse-labour to produce some very fine beers year round, and a stable of seasonals.

I am just starting to feel that the melancholy was getting a bit much to listen all the way through in one sitting when the inclusion of more obvious percussion lifts the timbre a touch to the benefit of my ears. Gleypa Okkur feels much more like a soundtrack piece as a result; not more modern, but more attentive to modern sensibilities, at least until the denouement. It is as this track ends that I realise each piece segues into the next cleanly. I wonder if the album is one work and the tracks just artifacts of convenience. I go to look this up, to stumble over a review pointing out that it was inspired by film - so soundtrack is not a million miles away from the point, then. I find another link that suggests that there is a "story" to the whole work, but that the songs are indeed separate and various in age. The transitions maybe planned later, or happy coincidences, then.

After a couple of welcome tracks with deeper arrangements that have blown by whilst I was off looking for that information I find myself back in the trench with the sparsity but the tone is definitely different now. Less melancholic. The string line is still lonely and the piano is still slow, but the sounds are warmer, maybe tinged with a slight smile. I buy into that story idea, and again linking it back to a film as inspiration that does not feel like a leap. I have enjoyed this a lot - and doing it in daylight rather than the darkening gloom of evening and whilst that little bit more awake has meant that the directions of my thoughts have been more purposeful, less lazy. Alas, that is not always an option.

The final track (an Icelandic translation of the title phrase, apparently) is just drawing to a close. The end refrains are pleasant. I think the muted brass interjection was a poor call, though.