There are signs up around The Basement that read: “Olafur Arnalds performance has moments of extreme quiet. Please respect the artist’s performance and your fellow audience members experience by remaining silent during the show”.
To the audience’s immense credit, they do just that, creating the perfect reverential atmosphere to match one of the quietest and most minimalist performances imaginable.
Before Arnalds, Raven plays set with just a cello and loop pedal. The stage name of Peter Hollo, also a member of string quarter Fourplay, his set is largely improvised, often teasing out the different possibilities involved in a single, fragmentary melody.
There is a definite element of experimentalism in his work, with one piece seeing him rattling the bow beneath the strings of his cello, searching for new sounds to be produced.
The sombre ‘Sleeping Dogs Lie’ was a rare excursion into pre-written music and its languid, graceful style proved mesmerising. Raven’s music exists within a very specific niche, but this was definitely his audience and his set was warmly received.
Warmth is also overflowing in the emotional response to Arnalds’ music, exquisitely wrought miniatures which both demand and reward not just the audience’s silence, but their complete concentration.
Tiny details and barely-there touches on the piano have everyone compelled – there are precious few artists that do so much with so little. Playing as a three-piece band with cello and violin, he and his band wring out the emotional depths of delicate pieces like ‘Hands, Be Still’ and ‘This Place Was A Shelter’ to quietly devastating effect.
Such is the quiet around his performance that at one point he becomes distracted by the low hum of a ceiling fan and vows to keep talking until the venue turn it off. The audience responds ecstatically when it is eventually turned off, showing their complete commitment to being immersed in Arnalds’ music.
It is a mesmerising set where pieces melt into each other, with much of the set comprising material from this year’s ethereal, molasses slow ‘For Now I Am Winter’ as well as older pieces like ‘Poland’, so titled because it was written in Poland, warming up with strong local vodka on the tour bus.
Throughout the evening, Arnalds’ explanations of the songs provide an unexpectedly funny counterpoint to the sweeping, otherworldly beauty of the music. He talks of a jet-lagged radio interview where, unused to the Australian accent, he misheard the title of a radio show ‘Inside sleeves’ as ‘inside slaves’, making for an awkward moment.
Later, he recounts how ‘ Ljósið’ was initially commissioned for a bath tub commercial, a fact which hasn’t stopped journalists worldwide from speculating on how it was inspired by the wintry beauty and volcanic landscape of his native Iceland.
Whatever its origins, it is indeed beautiful and evocative, a melody of infinitesimal scale gently asserting itself over faint, undulating rhythms.
The set proper draws to a close with the slow-burning ‘Near Light’ from his excellent, cinematic Living Room EP, before he returns for an encore of a single song, the sleepily beautiful ‘Lag Fryir Ommu’.
Playing his piano as though afraid of breaking it, he devotes the piece to his grandmother who “force fed” him classical music, broadening his palette of musical influences.
It’s a typically graceful work and a welcome reminder of how quickly his music has progressed. Aged only 26, it is not too long ago he was a drummer in death metal bands such as Fighting Shit, before progressing to ballet scores and other overtly classical-influenced projects, which now seem quite removed from the completely singular and radically minimalist music he is now perfecting.
With a return tour already being scheduled for next year, Australia’s love affair with the quietest of quiet musicians may be only just beginning.
