Various Artists - Late Night Tales: Olafur Arnalds (2016)

After releasing the breakthrough album• ‘And They Have Escaped The Weight Of Darkness’, in 2014 he was awarded a BAFTA for best original music for the TV series Broadchurch. Arnalds’ music has a quietude that seems perfectly apposite and that’s evident here as each song drifts like an autumn wind towards the next.

Arnalds has enlisted the help of a few of his countrymen for the journey out west – electronic bands Samaris and Hjaltalín – and just as his records manage to combine the experimentalism and adventure of electronic music with a classical sensibility, here he weaves them perfectly, using tracks like Koreless’ brilliant post-dubstep ‘Last Remnants’ alongside the enigmatic brilliance of Jai Paul. It’s a perfect musical landscape that is eerie yet beautiful, as on Odesza’s ‘How Did I Get Here’.

As if Ólafur wasn’t spoiling us enough, he offers up three exclusives: his own ‘Kinesthesia I’ and ‘RGB’ and ‘Orgoned’ by his techno side project Kiasmos. Alongside that we have the obligatory cover version (Destiny’s Child’s ‘Say My Name’) and also a Late Night Tales debut for David Tennant, reading a story by Anam Sufi, with whom Ólafur worked on Broadchurch.

“When I was asked to do the next installation of the Late Night Tales series I thought "This will be fun and easy, only a couple of days work. No problem!". Six months later, I was still pulling my hair out in some kind of quest to make the perfect mix. As someone who has never really done mixes before, I learned a lot of things along the way and the whole experience was very inspiring. I decided to approach the mix in a similar way as I would one of my scores. This is the soundtrack of my life. I included songs from many of my friends and collaborators and tried to deliver a mix that represents who I am as an artist and where my influences are coming from - both personally and musically.”

Tracklist:

1. Hjálmar Lárusson & Jónbjörn Gíslason – Jómsvíkingarímur - Ýta Eigi Feldi Rór (1:12)
2. Julianna Barwick – Forever (5:29)
3. Koreless – Last Remnants (4:20)
4. ODESZA – How Did I Get Here (Instrumental Version) (2:10)*
5. Anois – A Noise (4:05)
6. Samaris – Góða Tungl (4:10)
7. Ólafur Arnalds – RGB (4:38)*
8. Rival Consoles – Pre (5:14)
9. Four Tet – Lion (Jamie xx Remix) (7:08)
10. Jai Paul – Jasmine (4:13)
11. James Blake – Our Love Comes Back (3:39)
12. Spooky Black – Pull (4:13)
13. Ólafur Arnalds – Say My Name (feat. Arnór Dan) (5:41)*
14. Sarah Neufeld & Colin Stetson – And Still They Move (2:57)
15. Kiasmos – Orgoned (6:00)*
16. Ólafur Arnalds – Kinesthesia I (1:46)*
17. Hjaltalín – Ethereal (6:39)
18. David Tennant – Undone (3:52)
19. Ólafur Arnalds – Late Night Tales: Ólafur Arnalds (Continuous Mix) (69:23)