From Iceland — Ólafur Arnalds Announces New Album

Ólafur Arnalds Announces New Album

Published August 26, 2020

Catherine Magnúsdóttir
Photo by
Benjamin Hardman

Ólafur Arnalds announced his new album, entitled “some kind of piece”, which is set to be released on November 6th this year.

On Facebook, Ólafur posted that this album is supposed to be about “what it means to be alive, daring to be vulnerable and the importance of rituals.”

In “his most personal album to date, set against a background of a world thrown into chaos”, Ólafur features songs he produced in collaboration with British electronic musician Bonobo, the German singer Josin and Jófríður Ákadóttir, better known as JFDR.

Ólafur also posted a trailer for the album on YouTube and in the description he writes about the process of creating the album mostly in his new studio in Reykjavík and managing to finish it just before lockdown earlier this year.

“Like everybody else I was shocked by this sudden interruption in my life and it forced me to take stock in what I was doing, how it impacted in my writing and what I was drawing from. By the time the pandemic struck, I had already written half the album, and the rest flowed freely.”

The result is an album free of “big concepts and grand ideas”.

Additionally, Ólafur also premiered the second single from the album, the piano ballad “We Contain Multitudes”.

About a month ago Ólafur was also nominated for an Emmy for his work on the Apple TV+ show “Defending Jacob”.

You can watch the trailer for “some kind of piece” here or below, as well as the song “We Contain Multitudes” here.

Note: Due to the effect the Coronavirus is having on tourism in Iceland, it’s become increasingly difficult for the Grapevine to survive. If you enjoy our content and want to help the Grapevine’s journalists do things like eat and pay rent, please consider joining our High Five Club.

You can also check out our shop, loaded with books, apparel and other cool merch, that you can buy and have delivered right to your door.

Support The Reykjavík Grapevine!
Buy subscriptions, t-shirts and more from our shop right here!

Show Me More!