Mondays in Iceland - #116

Ólafur Arnalds and JFDR “Virtual Airwaves” Show

Last Thursday I watched a live-streamed concert from Iceland featuring these two esteemed musicians.

I had seen them perform together last winter, but this show started with JFDR performing a couple of tunes with her old Samaris buddy Áslaug as well as a cellist in Gamla Bío (in a recorded piece) and ended with Ólafur on keyboards augmented by a string quartet and his two “robotic” pianos playing in Iðno. While the process of signing up for the viewing was relatively painless it was not cheap; it is a way for these artist to make some concert revenue in these constrained times; some of the money went to the venues themselves.

The music was fine, JFDR’s voice showed some maturing with a deeper register (she can’t be a teenager forever!) but the video was some what crude. Ólafur’s presentation was impeccable, with atmospheric visuals and excellent audio. The link to the concert enabled me to review it within 48 hours so I used the opportunity to capture the audio to CD which will give me a chance to re-live it—its ambience would be an excellent addition to a long car trip.

This will be as close to Iceland Airwaves as I’ll get this year, maybe 2022?