About

Typically, it is with a careful hand that composer Ólafur Arnalds approaches his music, ambient soundscapes and modern instrumentals evoking achingly beautiful senses of place and being. Over a decade of solo music work has seen him score ballet and film alike. He has laced silver piano reflections with harsh trap beats; he has brought together folk sounds of his native north with Western art stylings and contemporary electronics.

On re:member, Arnalds takes a particularly delicate hand in assembling the sounds of live and computer-borne instruments, and the result is seamless. Each track glides on air and light, humanmade projections of an idealized natural world conveyed through a rich variance of human handiwork. Strings rush, keys shine, synths glow, percussion drives some tracks into headier speeds - everything is polished, and even on Arnalds' busiest pieces, serenity overcomes. It stands as the foundation of the opening title track, a slowly building composition of radiant piano notes and strings.

The piano notes in question make up not only the musical backbone of many of the pieces but also stand out as an important technological feature of the work. Arnalds uses innovative Stratus software across re:member, controlling two "self-playing, semi-generative playerpianos" with a central piano that Arnalds plays directly. Developed by Ólafur Arnalds and audio developer Halldór Eldjárn, the Stratus Pianos served as an interactive art installation in Reykjavík before the album; now, wholly in Arnalds' hands, they are flawless. – Popwire