ERASED TAPES RECORDS If you thought Sigur Ros had the patent on hauntingly beautiful and meticulously compelling music coming out of Iceland, then Ólafur Arnalds is here to educate you otherwise. With his EULOGY FOR EVOLUTION album, Ólafur Arnalds creates perhaps some of the most evocative and tear stained music you're going to hear all year. As a musician, composer and bizarrely drummer for hardcore bands Fighting Shit and Celestine, Arnalds resides in Mosfellbaer, a town just outside of Iceland's cultural hotbed, Reykjavik. Debut record EULOGY FOR EVOLUTION is a sweeping orchestral suite, a constantly building and shifting cascade of music that gradually culminates in a swirling climax of elegiactic orchestra swells and swirling post rocking guitar noise; the sound of a thousand hearts being broken simultaneously. This may not make for the most upbeat or perky of listening experiences, but as an exercise in tear stained emotion; you'll be hard pressed to surpass this. A moving, beautiful and ultimately heartbreaking listen, EULOGY FOR EVOLUTION is perhaps this years most hauntingly emotive sounding experience. Stunningly impressive stuff, but be warned; you may need a lie down in a darkened room to recover. “Beautiful in the same way the Antarctica is” Fragile, emotional, classical indie music would maybe be the best term to describe Ólafur Arnalds’ music. Combining classical instrumentation with an indierock aesthetic there are obvious comparisons to Sigur Ros, but Arnalds is sculpting his own epic, string-laden compositions. Ólafur is just 20 years old, hails from the suburbian town Mosfellsbær, just a few kilometers out of Reykjavík. Besides his soloproject, Ólafur plays drums in two hardcore bands, Fighting Shit and Celestine, and he also plays piano, banjo, guitar and drums in his friend’s soloproject, My Summer as a Salvation Soldier. His first solo album, “Eulogy for Evolution”, has been highly praised by the media and local music fans in Iceland and has already created quite a buzz around Europe and even all the way to Japan despite several delays of it’s release. The album is finally being released in Europe, USA and Japan by Progression Records and in the UK by Erased Tapes Records in autumn 2007 Ólafur recently supported american indie-rock band Cursive on a tour around Germany. Despite the musical differences of the two bands, the tour went really well and the audiences were amazed by the unexpected slow-building and hauntingly melodic chamber music, accompanied by electronic ambience, loops and sometimes heavy electronic beats. Olafur Arnalds>www.olafurarnalds.com