ÓLAFUR ARNALDS
Living Room Songs
ERATP037
Erased Tapes 2011
07 Tracks. 23mins01secs

A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN
A Winged Victory For The Sullen
ERATP032
Erased Tapes 2011
07 Tracks. 44mins31secs

Living Room Songs
Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP | DLD iTunes: DLD Spotify: STRM
A Winged Victory For The Sullen
Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

Two years ago, Icelandic musician and composer Ólafur Arnalds embarked on a week-long project for which he composed, recorded and released one track a day, which he made available to download for free on a special page, promoted through social networks. To complement these, he asked fans to email him pictures inspired by the music. The tracks were subsequently released as Found Songs. This gruelling schedule has clearly not deterred Arnalds who, last October, pulled a similar stunt by recording seven new pieces in the living room of his Reykjavik apartment, this time adding a new layer to the project by filming his daily performances. The tracks were once again made given away on Arnalds’s website.

Playing piano on every track, Arnalds is here surrounded by friends and, on one occasion, family, who add string works and electronic touches. The music is typical of his work, often melancholic and touching, extremely melodic and nuanced, and partly revolves around circular themes. The addition of video documents gives the music an even greater intimacy, especially as the camera offers extreme close ups of hands, instruments and faces. Unlike with Found Songs, where part of the challenge was to compose a new piece each day, some of the pieces collected here stem from earlier live improvisations (Tomorrow’s Song), failed experiments (Ágúst) or are variations of existing pieces (Film Credits). At times, the set up is somewhat ambitious, as Arnalds enrols the help of his mother and sister on electronics (Near Light) or calls upon a large string formation, as the camera progressively reveals twelve musicians crammed into the composer’s living room on Lag Fyrir Ömmu.

With the closing piece, This Place Is A Shelter, Arnalds hints at the fact that, being away from home for a lot of the time to perform in venues around the world, he was in some way returning the favour by inviting his fans to his home. The track was recorded during a wrap party for the project and sees the performers joined by an audience of friends.

Whilst his studio albums have seen Arnalds venture away from the modern classical, these more intimate and time-constrained projects are much more focused and ranks amongst his most exciting and exquisite work.

The joint venture that is A Winged Victory For The Sullen on the other hand is quite a stern affair. The first in a series of planned releases from Dustin O’Halloran and Stars Of The Lid founding member Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie under this banner, this self-titled release was conceived and recorded in large spaces across Europe using full size concert grand pianos, with additional contributors, amongst which Peter Broderick on violin and Hildur Guðnadóttir on cello, providing orchestral touches.

Here, the music is particularly solemn and sombre, especially on the string-led pieces. Requiem For The Static King parts 1 and 2 are based on slow progressive chords which continuously ebb and flow over the course of these two pieces, evoking wintery plains wrapped in thick layers of fog. It is almost as if time itself was on the verge of stopping. On the second part, a ray of light tries to pierce through when a delicate piano motif slowly emerges, but even its sustained presence never quite manages to lift the mood. With Steep Hills Of Vicodin Tears and A Symphony Pathétique take this even further by relying on drone-like formations which, while progressing at an extremely slow pace, allow, at least on the latter, for a more emotive layer to develop above it. The control here is quite astonishing; and at no time is there any feeling that the whole thing could suddenly erupt or collapse. The density of the orchestral part may shift slightly in one way or another, but it remains present in pretty much the same way through the whole of the twelve and a half minutes of the piece.

While lighter in tone, the piano-led pieces (We Played Some Open Chords And Rejoiced…, Minuet For A Cheap Piano Number Two) appear to only accentuate the sombre mood which covers up the rest of the album.

A Winged Victory For The Sullen is announced as a fully-fledged project from O’Halloran and Wiltzie, and on the back of such an impressionist record, it is indeed to be hoped that there is much more to come from the duo, although it is difficult to see just how they could strip the music down any more without compromising it entirely.

Living Room Songs: 4.5/5 A Winged Victory For The Sullen: 4.6/5

Ólafur Arnalds | A Winged Victory For The Sullen | Erased Tapes
Living Room Songs
 Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP | DLD iTunes: DLD Spotify: STRM
A Winged Victory For The Sullen
Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD