Ólafur Arnalds on being your friendly neighborhood multi-hyphenate

Simply put: there are not many things that could be said about Ólafur Arnalds that haven’t already been said. However, in a lot of ways, that’s where the simplicity ends, with Ólafur being the kind of creator that’s impossible to fit into a box. He’s a multi-instrumentalist from Iceland who’s also an accomplished composer, a producer, an arranger, a french fry aficionado; the guy can do it all. On this episode of the podcast, I aim to explore his “why.” Like why does he find himself driven to explore so many areas of art the way that he does, especially when it comes to collaboration.

This reminds me of Ólafur’s recent collaborations that you need to know about: his project SAGES with Swedish singer Loreen (who is also the first woman to become a two-time winner of Eurovision). There’s also the stellar track ‘We Didn’t Know We Were Ready’ which is a collaboration with a beautiful ensemble of artists, including our recently departed friend Eoin French (aka Talos). It’s mentioned in the intro, but a few months back I released a tribute episode to him, and if you’d like to listen to that you can hear it here.