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Icelandic composer and multi-instrumentalist Ólafur Arnalds has always been open to collaborations and is enjoyably unpredictable in his musical directions. His award-winning repertoire ranges in style from hardcore punk to neoclassical, including an atmospheric score for TV drama Broadchurch. In March, Arnalds released the EP SAGES with Swedish electropop vocalist Loreen. His latest album, A Dawning, is a very different, distinctly yearning work of creative kinship — this time, with the late Irish singer-songwriter Talos, aka Eoin French.
The pair originally clicked at a music festival residency in French’s home city of Cork, finding common ground in minimal yet richly evocative material. They began shaping what would become A Dawning in Reykjavik, but during this process French fell seriously ill with cancer; he died last summer, aged just 36, before the album was completed. Inevitably, A Dawning emerges as a meditation on loss, grief and fleeting time. It also feels like a testimony to love and friendship — French is intensely present throughout, from his voice note sampled on the intro track “Shared Time”, to rootsy yet resonant melodies such as “West Cork, 12 Feb”.
The posthumous release is an uneasy form. There is often a distracting uncertainty about the absent artist’s vision. On A Dawning, Arnalds’s approach is intuitive and focused; these eight tracks are unforced in their intimacy, warmly catchy, and sentimental without ever being cloying. This isn’t French’s only posthumous release — his lush EP with Atli Örvarsson is also worth paying attention to — and he was a highly-regarded talent, tipped for more widespread recognition. His characteristically brooding voice exerts bittersweet power here, whether accompanied by hazy electronica on “Signs”, or the sleek, escalating strings of the title track.
The lyrics meld mythical and elemental details. On the dreamy disquiet of “Bedrock”, French croons: “I’m blazing out to see the storms dying/And set the skies alight with wildfires”, while the brittle yet beautiful piano instrumental “For Steph” is French’s dedication to his wife. “We Didn’t Know We Were Ready”, featuring folk harmonies from Niamh Regan and Ye Vagabonds, forms the album’s devastatingly tender endnote — an expression of unity, and also of letting go.
★★★★☆
‘A Dawning’ is released by Opia Community and Mercury KX
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