Airwaves : Ólöf Arnalds

Ólöf Arnalds is an Icelandic composer and multi-instrumentalist. Her most distinctive asset is, nonetheless, her voice of instantly captivating, spring water chasteness possessed of a magical, otherworldly quality that is simultaneously innocent yet ancient (“somewhere between a child and an old woman” according to no less an authority than Björk). Her work has been called “otherworldly” by The New York Times, “stunning” by SPIN, “bewitching” by Rolling Stone, “remarkable” by the NME, “ethereal” by Vanity Fair and “impossibly lovely” by Paste. Ólöf can mesmerise a room with nothing but a small guitar and her distinctive soprano voice. Across five albums in nearly twenty years, her gently plucked guitar, charango, violin and koto–amongst other instruments–have provided the bedrock for vivid narrations straddling the mundane and mythological, sketching out rich emotional territories often concerned with love, equal parts familial, platonic and romantic.