Olafur Arnalds is a relatively new inspiration to me. I first came across his music during the coronavirus lockdown back in 2020 and quickly got hooked.
I would definitely say that although I like most of of his music, I am heavily drawn to certain pieces so others take a backseat.
The first piece I heard by Arnalds was “Only The Winds”. This is probably still my favourite although quite a few others are up there with it for me now. I loved the combination of simple piano with added string and synth layers sweeping in which is brought together with a pulsing bass drum and a gun shot effect. These percussive sounds blew my mind. Adding beats to classical music?! I know this has been done before with reimaginings of famous pieces but this experimental idea really caught my attention. And then they all start to disappear only to be brought back with rising strings which give me the chills each time. An absolutely beautiful ending. This piece really inspired my version of “From A Third Perspective” which was restructured from another piece I had written for solo piano.
From here I went through his back catalogue of releases and discovered some other gems. I really like “Re:member”, “We Contain Multitudes”, “Saman” and “Near Light” but there are so many more. I seem to either really like his solo piano pieces or the pieces which are more experimental rather than just strings and piano. i also prefer the slightly more structured pieces rather than the improvised style pieces.
I would like to experiment a bit more with my music as I really liked how “From A Third Perspective” turned out and I think I prefer to play around with synths more than with more traditional instruments these days. The only issue is having the time to explore these ideas but I do really enjoy the process.
I wouldn't have thought about trying these new ideas out if it hadn't been from listening to Arnalds work. I look forward to whenever he releases new music as I like to see where he has taken things again.
