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- Summary: The Icelandic singer-songwriter's second album was produced by Sigur Ros' Kjartan Sveinsson.
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- Record Label: One Little Indian
- Genre(s): Folk, Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 8 out of 11
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Mixed: 3 out of 11
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Negative: 0 out of 11
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The album's titular track, which translates to "Within Skin," is a reference to pregnancy, but it's also a manifesto of the album's purpose as an arbiter of overwhelming feeling bound up in a neatly-tied package of folk tunes--the emotional intensity lying under the surface rather than on the sleeve.
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Produced by Sigur Ros' Kjartan Sveinsson, Arnalds embellishes her debut's spare guitar-voice template with discreet overdubs, including brass and strings, enhancing breathtaking tunes like "Surrender" (which features Bjork adding a swirling countermelody). For those who consider Joanna Newsom too mainstream.
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At just over half an hour long Innundir Skinni is a modest little record compared to the self-indulgence of Joanna Newsom's latest or grandiose ambitions of countrymen like Sigur Ros, but its charms are plentiful and in her own humble, but distinct, way Olof Arnalds confounds expectations.
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Oct 26, 2010Incidentally, this is what the title Innundir Skinni translates to loosely in English-- "under the skin"-- an apt description for Arnalds' gentle, peculiar and powerful music itself.
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Simple, slightly silly but splendidly affecting, it's a telling suggestion that Arnalds will retain her endearingly obtuse edge, whatever language she favours in future.
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Innundir Skinni is still a worthy achievement, it's emotional but not melodramatic; understated yet grand. But it is a mixture rather than a whole and lacks the cohesion of Arnalds' inspiring first album.
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Mar 17, 2011The title track, meanwhile, showcases the intimate girl-and-a-guitar ethos that makes Arnalds so charming. Unfortunately, the sensual charango tick-tocking of "Surrender" features backing vox from One Little Indian label head Bjork, who railroads the song with her guttural growls and swoopy showboating.