Best of What's Next: Ólafur Arnalds

Photos by Stuart Bailes

Hometown: Mosfellsbaer, Iceland
Album: Found Songs EP
For Fans Of: Sigur Ros, Múm, Thomas Newman

In the last few years, Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds suffered two accidents that did horrible things to his body but wonderful things for his music. At age 17, he was rough-housing with some friends when one of them jumped on his head, nearly breaking Arnalds’ spine as he bent under the weight; five years later, before he’d fully recovered, a car accident broke several more bones and injured his neck and shoulders.

Doctors massaged his muscles and cracked his bones, but never could alleviate his pain. Then, by his mother’s orders, the now-23-year-old Arnalds sought out craniosacral therapy, where physicians placed their hands on his body to open up energy stations fueling the spine and skull. He walked into the first session feeling doubtful, but he walked out feeling remarkable. “I cried for the first time in years just because I was so happy, and I was so shocked,” Arnalds told Paste the day after his first session. “It was like some kind of miracle.”

Before, Arnalds had only been able to comfort himself with his music. At age 14 he’d found his earliest inspiration in composer Thomas Newman’s score for The Green Mile. “It was classical but still accessible,” he says. “It was something I could understand even though I didn’t really listen to much classical music.” But his self-created musical therapy would begin later, at age 21, as a music school dropout. Arnalds created an LP and EP, Eulogy for Evolution and Variations of Static, using his sister’s classical theory books, linking up meditations over the death of his uncle and birth of that uncle’s first grandchild.

With its sighing strings, deliberate piano, electronic reverb and even one heavy metal guitar tirade, both works are mature, modern explorations of life and its unexpected joys, rendering Arnalds increasingly visible (and therefore increasingly confused with folk singer/songwriter Ólöf Arnalds, an entirely different Icelandic artist who happens to be his cousin).

Just as Arnalds sought solace in his compositions, thousands of others have done the same. In 2007 and 2008, he filled up all 1,949 seats in London’s Barbican Hall and toured with fellow Icelanders Sigur Rós. In 2009, he created the soundtrack for Wayne MacGregor’s latest ballet, Dyad 1909. More recently, he recorded and mixed one track per day for a week, then released each one for free. The resulting EP, Found Songs, has been downloaded over 100,000 times, inspiring hundreds of fan-made collages, photographs and videos.

With 2010 on the horizon, Arnalds is anticipating more firsts. His first film soundtrack, a dream project, will commence once shooting starts in Los Angeles next summer. His still-untitled sophomore LP, set for a spring release, marks his first time working with another producer, Barði Jóhannsson. And if all goes well with his craniosacral therapy, thanks to his mother’s recommendation, for the first time in quite some time Arnalds will be able to make his healing music without feeling any pain.