While gearing up for the follow-up to 2010’s And They Have Escaped the Weight of Darkness, Icelandic music master Ólafur Arnalds opted to offer fans a week-long writing and recording series, allowing fans to follow the process as he releases the songs the same day they were written and recorded. Arnalds has done this before. His 2009 sessions included collaborations with fans via Twitter as they submitted artwork to accompany his music. He also collected and released the tracks as Found Songs and he will do the same for this current round of compositions.
This lot, called Living Room Songs, is already available for pre-order, for those who fancy having the songs in one, high-quality package. The sessions, which spanned from October 3-9, are, of course, now over but you can still watch performances from Arnalds’ apartment and even download the songs (albeit in a format unlikely to please audiophiles) for free.
The results are, musically speaking, expectedly strong. Then again, the beauty of all this is that you can decide for yourself. Just watch and/or listen.