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Stories   >   Olafur Arnalds manipulates an impressive array of sounds and tempos at the London Palladium / musicOMH

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Olafur Arnalds manipulates an impressive array of sounds and tempos at the London Palladium / musicOMH

Posted: October 30, 2018 12:00 AM | By: Admin
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Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds‘ new album Re:member, released this August, was a beguiling combination of intricate, impeccable craftmanship and human warmth, capable of scaling heights few of his contemporaries can match. A collection of often beautiful keyboard/strings pieces underpinned by subtle electronica, it achieved extra layers of harmonic complexity through Arnalds' use of his pioneering Stratus technology, which allows notes played on a main piano to generate alternative notes on two further pianos.

Seeing these pianos ‘play themselves' on stage was just one highlight of Arnalds' first of two back-to-back shows at the venerable London Palladium. Arnalds was backed by a live string quartet and the drummer Manu Delago, an Austrian percussionist who had already opened the evening as the support act with his intriguing, otherworldly music played on the hang, a modern, steelpan-like instrument.

While the other musicians were given plenty of opportunity to show off their talents, Arnalds himself was very much at the centre of proceedings, switching between pianos and synthesisers, seamlessly manipulating an impressive array of sounds and tempos and occasionally pausing between songs to talk to the crowd with an understated, wry Nordic humour. At one point he even dabbled with audience participation, asking the crowd to sing a single note which he then recorded and included in his next song.

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