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Baker's Dozen

Found Songs: Ólafur Arnalds' Favourite Albums
Wyndham Wallace , March 11th, 2013 12:56

The Icelandic neo-classical composer and producer takes a break from producing his cinematic soundscapes to pick out his 13 favourite records, ahead of his set at the Barbican tonight

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Clint Mansell - The Fountain
That’s another very influential work for me, and it’s definitely Clint Mansell’s best work. His Requiem For A Dream soundtrack is great and always what he’s best known for, but I think this is a much better composition, and a better done soundtrack, even though it’s not as catchy or as powerful in a way. He’s also a very cool guy. I got to know him last year and we became friends since. It’s weird when you meet someone who’s one of your idols. The starting point of me composing classical music was me listening to Requiem For A Dream. And then meeting this guy and actually getting to know him? He’s just a normal guy. He’s a football fan. He gets drunk. He has all the same issues that other people have when trying to write music. And it turned out he was a big fan of me! I’ve never actually listened to Pop Will Eat Itself, but I know about them. My friend told me it wasn’t very good so I’ve tried to avoid it. When you meet him and talk to him you can see that this was a guy who was in an 80s band. There’s no plan for us to work together, but that’s definitely a possibility from my side, anyway.