hooves on the turf

Download “Klara” | This was my first time seeing Olof Arnalds as a frontwoman–all previous performances being that of Mum, when she stood in one corner or the other, trading guitar for violin, violin for melodica, melodica for bells, and basically immersing herself in the beautiful clutter that used to be Mum (I still love them, but now they’re a different sort of clumsy). So I was pleasantly surprised that as a frontwoman Olof Arnalds is quite chatty, and those of us who found the expression “tuning this is a bitch” in her soft-spoken, thick Icelandic accent charmingly hilarious must just be forgiven (I’m sure it’ll be less funny the second time anyway, so don’t fret). She started with what sounded like would be the intro track of her new album, and I suppose it was gutsy of her to not only speak over it, explaining what instruments would be implemented in the recording, how this would come in and that, but also kicking the whole thing off with a request to sing along, adding, “Now this is where it gets louder, so you have to be louder too”.

All pictures, and story continued, after the jump.

Very quickly into the set, Olof also performed a lovely Bruce Springsteen cover , though she seemed to have forgotten his name. Looking to her trusty pal Shahzad Ismaily for help, she said, “What is his name again? Ah! Bruce Springsteen”. Later on she would say, “Don’t worry, we’re not going to go ambient on you” when a little tuning lapse occurred; later still, she blurted out some truly instructional things like, “Shahzad, can you give me the beat” in the middle of a song.

So of course Le Poisson Rouge was an awesome venue for this set. Nico Muhly played a Yamaha grand piano, which sounded pretty much divine. Olof’s voice and “guitars” (of varying shapes and sizes) remained central, though the spotlight was shared with Sam Amidon’s violin every now and then. But there were also several elements of barely audible details both on the piano and Shahzad Ismaily’s variety of percussive outlets that seemed really thoughtful, and which the venue translated wonderfully despite their small volume.

The seating arrangement was different from the last two times I’ve been there. About eight or six chairs each were arranged on two sides of several rectangular tables in a way that almost felt like diner tables all butted against each other. This covered the entire floor, which worked well for this show. I thought, however, that Olof’s voice sounded slightly different from what you hear in recordings. It was even more folkish in the sense that it was almost matronly. You could really imagine it coming from a woman washing clothes in the hills, though it’s not true that her voice, like Joanna Newsom’s, is the kind people either hate or love. There are people like me who don’t necessarily love hers or Joanna’s, yet don’t mind it, though we clearly enjoy it since our attention is grabbed more by the songs instead.

I couldn’t stay for Skuli Sverrisson, but here are all the photos:

Nico Muhly on the piano.

Sam Amidon on violin.

Shahzad Ismaily switched between this and drums.

“Tuning this is a bitch” — she said of her charanga, borrowed from Skuli Sverrisson. And also, “It’s made from armadillo”.