The work of Iceland's Ólafur Arnalds-- essentially a simplified, melodically forthright take on chamber music-- straddles the worlds of indie rock and classical. He's already opened for Sigur Rós, and like them, he isn't afraid to go right for the emotional jugular. Found Songs collects seven compositions, mainly for piano and strings, each created and Tweeted in a single day. Appropriately, they're concise: Grand, melancholy themes explored for two or three minutes apiece, sometimes closer to etudes than songs. But the slow pacing and careful recording lend an opulent scale to the compact spaces, and the pieces work like tiny yet detailed scenes in music boxes, charming and sad.
Throughout the album, a mood of doomed romance prevails. On "Erla's Waltz", a stately heartbreaker for solo piano, you can practically see the elegant ceramic figurines turning their tragic steps, and the plangent melody bowed across "Faun" seems to be openly weeping. There are few "difficult" passages, only limpid revolutions of melody and counterpoint with an overemphasis on climaxes. The album approaches that troublesome quality-- sentimentality-- with earnestness and faith. It's like Arnalds is picking up cues from the emotionally-charged ambient of Eluvium as the latter embarks on a new vocal-centered style.
From music-box melodies to maudlin strings, Found Songs dispenses clichés at an astonishing pace, which makes it seem both under- and overwhelming at first. (How easy is it to admire and then forget pretty albums filled with strings, pianos, and light field recordings?) It seems too stirring in a way that's too easy. But Arnalds' attention to nuance amid all the fanfare, and to tone at every moment, goes a long way toward redeeming those intense emotions we write off as puerile. On "Romance", the wearily hopeful, Satie-like piano line sidewinds briefly into a more tentative-sounding key before righting itself again, an unsentimental touch that makes everything around it more piercing.
Slight thematic complications like this hint at a formidable future for Arnalds, once he sheds some youthful excesses. But even when they smother his subtler instincts, his passions have a certain charm, and arrangements that could have been weak tea gain a palpable kick. You feel moved, but not quite used, and Found Songs feels special beyond the means of its borderline wallpaper-y aesthetic.
