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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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Mew - No More Stories
It has a really long title (No More Stories Are Told Today, I'm Sorry They Washed Away // No More Stories, The World Is Grey, I'm Tired, Let's Wash Away), probably the longest title I’ve ever seen on an album. This was pretty much my favourite record of 2011. I listened to it a lot! One of the most amazing things about it is the production, the arrangements and what they’ve done with the songs, not only the songwriting itself. It inspired me a lot in my studio work, just creative ways of putting together recordings. Studio techniques. There’s one song, I think they recorded it backwards, and played it backwards, so it’s played forwards but it sounds backwards, which is really strange. It works so well. I really like the first album as well. There’s one song – ‘Hawaii’ – that’s definitely a favourite of mine, and ‘Introducing Palace Players’.