re:member

BAFTA winning Icelandic composer, musician and producer Ólafur Arnalds’ fourth solo studio album, re:member, was originally released by Mercury KX on the 24th August 2018. The highly regarded record featured Ólafur’s ground-breaking new use of software, Stratus, which transforms the humble piano into a unique new instrument. Speaking of the album, Ólafur says, “This is my breaking out-of-a-shell album. It’s me taking the raw influences that I have from all these different musical genres and not filtering them. It explores the creative process and how one can manipulate that to get out of the circle of expectations and habit.” The album uses the Stratus Pianos as well as string quatet, synths, electronics, live drums and a string orchestra recorded at London’s Air Studios. Plummeting the listener into a subversive world full of unexpected moods and emotions, Ólafur explored foreign musical soundscapes in every facet of re:member. From the very first note, the album takes the listener on a beautiful musical journey, constantly evolving and enlivening. The record concludes with a track called nyepi – meaning the Balinese ‘Day of Silence’, celebrated on New Year’s Day where everyone shuts themselves off from the outside world. Yet did the opposite and invited the listener to be part of his creative process. He stated at the time of release, “I want to inspire a community of creators with my music.”

Internationally celebrated for his haunting musical style, Ólafur captivatingly combines elements of ambient, classical, electronic and even elements of pop and rock. re:member followed the success of his innovative musical project Island Songs (2016), and two previous improvised projects Found Songs (2009) and Living Room Music (2011), both of which involved the daily release of new works over a seven-day period. Ólafur has also been praised for extensive soundtrack work, more recently composing the score for ITV’s Broadchurch, for which he won the 2014 BAFTA for Best Original Music.