Staff Reviews

Agnes Obel - Philharmonics (deluxe edition)

Review by James Atherton

This re-release will hopefully serve to give an assured and richly textured debut the additional attention it deserves.»

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a deluxe two disc edition of agnes obel's acclaimed debut album, with a bonus disc
featuring tracks recorded live in copenhagen, plus exclusive piano sessions material. originally from copenhagen but living in berlin, agnes is influenced by roy orbison, sonic youth and eric satie. she is often compared to joanna newsom, ane brun, st vincent and ricki lee jones. she manages to inject energy and shading into the songs with the use of piano and strings as her primary means. 'on powdered ground' uses the bare minimum and still manages to sound full and when she begins to harmonises with herself it becomes almost rich whilst still retaining an air of sparseness. one of the many highlights is a cover of john cale's '(i keep a) close watch' which builds slowly swells for the chorus and has an effortless weightless elegance that contrasts with the metronomic piano. she declares herself as a devotee of roy orbison and whilst it isn't obvious there is some similarity in the simplicity of the songs and 'over the hill' has the sort of structure and sentiment that you can imagine him mesmerising his audience with. the simplicity and clarity of these songs turns them into mini soundtracks.
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