From Iceland — Ólöf Arnalds - Við og við

Published May 4, 2007

Ólöf Arnalds has been playing music for a long time (for example with Múm and Stórsveit Nix Noltes) but this is her first solo release. Mostly it´s just Ólöf playing guitar and singing in a high-pitched voice that is definitely unique, sometimes a low key violin or bass is added. This is old school folk music, reminiscent of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Megas. In fact one song is a Megas cover, the rest original compostions by Ólöf. The lyrics are in Icelandic and are fortunately not so bad. But to me this sounds anachronistic, too much like lost recordings from the seventies. It´s certainly well executed and beautiful in its out of date way. Ólöf is a very skilled musician but this is far from being my cup of tea. I still recommend you check this out, it might blow you away or puzzle you, as it did me. PH