Beautiful Found Sounds

I get all sorts of artsy-fartsy things in my many inboxes, but this morning I stumbled upon of all things, an Icelandic composer who writes truly, hauntingly, painfully, lovely music. Olafur Arnalds has published a project online that I will be enjoying all day, and no doubt for many days to come.

The 21-year-old composer (yes, just 21) wrote and recorded a new piece every day and posted it online for anyone to download. Each of the compositions is free, and all of them are lovely.

I'm only through the first six of them. I thought at first "sure, I'll listen to them, but I doubt there will be downloading, I've got plenty of hauntingly pretty music on the ole iPod." Wrongo. So far I've downloaded every single thing I've listened to so far.

Here's what the newsletter (which I love) called VSL (Very Short List) had to say about the origin of the compisitions:

Day one’s piece, a waltz, was written for a friend named Elsa. The third composition — “Romance” — reminded Arnalds of a 19th-century opera. On day six, we heard a somber, year-old piece that Arnalds pulled off the shelf and reworked on the fly. And on the eve of the final day, the composer sent out a tweet in which he promised to end the week on a positive note. He delivered that note — a lovely duet for piano and violin — on Sunday, and it just might be our favorite of the bunch. At this rate, Arnalds can have a week of our time anytime.

Clearly-he's got more than a week of my time...and I hope yours too.

Check out the project at: Found Songs - Erased Tapes

While you're clicking around the Internets (not a typo) check out Very Short List too!