Hi there, I'm glad you found me. My name is Ólafur Arnalds and I like to make music.


Ólafur Arnalds

For your Sunday, Island Songs - the film.

1 week ago | [YT] | 89

Ólafur Arnalds

The beautiful Skissur – the collection just turned one year old.
It was through your requests that we decided to finally collect all of these into a single book and I’m so thankful for the reception – now and in the past – for the Skissur series.


As always, if you find yourself playing anything from the book, please tag me, I’d love to see it. As a little anniversary gift, below you can find a download of Words of Amber.


A fitting song for the coming fall I think.


Download here: tr.ee/SkissurSheet

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 189

Ólafur Arnalds

After being unavailable for quite some time now, Erased Tapes just did a re-pressing of Found Songs on this beautiful clear vinyl! In 2009 I made this album as a part of an attempt to escape my perfectionist tendencies and see what would happen if I forced myself to write, record and release a song per day every day for a week.

Get it via my webstore here: tr.ee/OAstore
Alda Music record store in Iceland has a few signed copies!

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 436

Ólafur Arnalds

So proud of ‪@sandrayati‬ who is releasing her second studio album INHABIT today while also being 37 weeks pregnant with our first child! I am in awe of her strength and persistence through this process and it is my life’s greatest fortune to get to be a part of this journey. The music speaks of the cycles of our lives and we are experiencing that whirlwind stronger than ever these days.

INHABIT is a gorgeous album that seamlessly weaves together all the different strands of Sandrayati’s life. Congratulations to everyone involved!

sandrayati.lnk.to/INHABIT

1 month ago | [YT] | 427

Ólafur Arnalds

A look through an amazing year with ‪@Kiasmos‬ 
Thanks everyone who came out this year, we got to see so many beautiful places and faces. Taking a little break from live shows now but you can catch ‪@JanusRasmussen‬ around the world this winter with his solo work and DJ sets!

1 month ago | [YT] | 196

Ólafur Arnalds

For A Dawning we were so lucky to have Máni Sigfússon bring Eoin’s drawings - featured in the artwork of the album - to life by placing them in environments relevant to the story of the album. Every song has a story and every visual has a reason.

You can find the full length versions of all of the visualisers here: tr.ee/ADvisual

1 month ago | [YT] | 80

Ólafur Arnalds

“Don’t let that light outrun us yet,
it feels like this war is our dawning”

The title track on A Dawning and some of my favourite lyrics Eoin ever wrote. The writing process was silent, unspoken, never planned.. Weaving layers of meaning that took me a while to get to the core of.

1 month ago | [YT] | 88

Ólafur Arnalds

Before his passing, Eoin presented me and Sandra with a gift of three artworks he had made for us that represented our time together in Iceland and what we went through there. As the album started to take form and became a meditation on friendship, brotherhood, community, it felt appropriate to bring these drawings into the album’s artwork. The main album cover is the second drawing in the series, which he said represented our home in Iceland - a shelter, a safe haven.

That is also what this album, my work with Eoin, has become for me. A safe place where i’ve been allowed to feel everything, feel him there, feel him missing.

A Dawning is out everywhere you listen to music: olafurarnalds.lnk.to/ADawningBio2

2 months ago | [YT] | 517

Ólafur Arnalds

Borrowed Time is a part of that first batch of songs Talos and I wrote at the Sounds From A Safe Harbour, locked in a hotel room, in a cocoon of creative experimentation.

We instantly felt it might lend itself well to some spoken word. Alexi Murdoch had just arrived at the festival, on a boat, and so we invited him into our little den where he came up with his verse on the spot.

Most of Borrowed Time was actually recorded in that hotel room that day. I only added the orchestral elements afterwards in order to contextualise the piece at this turning point of the album.

In the same vein Alexi’s words would come to be recontextualized, to me, through the passing of time.

"Often I have felt the heat
Of wings that beat inside my chest
The flightless weight of countless nights
Nights that came before my time
Condensed”

2 months ago | [YT] | 67

Ólafur Arnalds

A Dawning, the film. Directed by our brilliant friend Níall O’Brien (@niallito) and set to the album’s title track.

Shot in Iceland and Ireland, told through real people, real places, their memories, and the slow transformation that follows loss. The film is a celebration of life and the things that make it worth living.

I am immensely proud of this one… Thank you so much to the crazy amount of people involved! A credits post will follow 🤍

You can find the full video on my channel.

2 months ago | [YT] | 34