Live Review: Ólafur Arnalds

Touring his latest album For Now I Am Winter, Ólafur Arnalds performs at Melbourne Festival's Foxtel Festival Hub pop-up. The venue itself is industrial, with rather unremarkable street art adorning the walls. The night is warm and towards the end of the performance the room is warmer still. 

Arnalds' music is delicate and sparse. He uses synth sparingly and fleshes out simple melodies to create ethereal, calm soundscapes. The sound system is faultless and punters take turns in telling each other off for whispering too loudly during the songs. Arnalds takes the stage and immediately lets us know that he is extremely tired having just arrived from the US after a 25-hour flight. He gets the audience to sing the note C, which he records using his iPad (he helpfully plays the note on his piano). He quips that's okay if everyone sings badly as he has a back-up recording. Satisfied with the audience's efforts, he's joined onstage by cellist Rubin Kodheli and violinist Viktor Orri Árnason and uses the recording of the audience's singing as a backing track for the first song of their set Þú Ert Jörðin. 

Continuing with the epic touring schedule theme, he introduces Poland with the story of the song's inception. Unable to sleep during an overnight bus trip on tour, he and his bandmates drink vodka instead, only to find that the only thing worse than trying to sleep while driving on Polish roads is drinking vodka while driving on Polish roads. Admitting that the next morning he was feeling rather worse for wear, he shares that Poland demonstrates “not all sad songs are about heartbreak. There are many types of sadness”. 

In Hands Be Still, Orri Árnason steals the show with a beautiful seven-minute violin solo. The projections based on Orri Árnason's movements are mesmerising and perfectly complement the music. Arnalds completes the set with a rendition of Ljósið, probably the most famous knocked-back bathtub commercial soundtrack on the planet (thanks to YouTube). They leave to thunderous applause, a couple of aborted standing ovations and palpable disappointment that they don't come back for an encore. 

While the music is great, and Arnalds is an engaging and endearing performer, at times his music can leave you feeling a little dissatisfied, longing for a climax that never quite comes. Nevertheless, on most occasions Arnalds and band are able to surprise taking the audience through a myriad of different ideas and concepts.