Ólafur Arnalds
Photo by Anna Maggý
Simply put: there are not many things that could be said about Ólafur Arnalds that haven’t already been said. However, in a lot of ways, that’s where the simplicity ends, with Ólafur being the kind of creator that’s impossible to fit into a box. He’s a multi-instrumentalist from Iceland who’s also an accomplished composer, a producer, an arranger, a french fry aficionado; the guy can do it all. On this episode of the podcast, I aim to explore his “why.” Like why does he find himself driven to explore so many areas of art the way that he does, especially when it comes to collaboration.
This reminds me of a recent collaboration that Ólafur’s done with the Swedish singer Loreen called SAGES. Their first bit of music can be found wherever you stream music and we had a great time chatting about that within this episode. Also, Ólafur will be touring Europe with his electronic outfit Kiasmos throughout this summer, starting on May 4th in London at the Polygon Festival, visit olafurarnalds.com for all tour dates.
After you hear the episode, be sure to check out Olafur’s track We Didn’t Know We Were Ready on the official New Exchange Playlist. That track is a collaboration with a beautiful ensemble of artists, including our recently departed friend Eoin French (aka Talos). It’s mentioned in the intro, but a few months back I released a tribute episode to him, and if you’d like to listen to that you can hear it here. Be sure to follow Ólafur Arnalds on Spotify and Instagram.
