Scout Niblett is the sort of visionary that is on her own artistic path. She’s one of those rare individuals who is unencumbered by the paths forged by those who foraged through the wilds before her.
Bringing to mind the youthful exuberance of early Noise Addict and Daniel Johnston, and the poetic wisdom of PJ Harvey, Niblett is a true free spirit.
She creates her own universe in song where she desires to be a prince and summons us as musicians, magicians, as lovers and as truckers that its all for us, as she and nature’s elements act in congress for the sole purpose of being swept away in the tides of love & its sister senses.
Scout Niblett | Gun
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=U_EYmtHbiZ0
Taking her stage name from Harper Lee’s famed novel -To Kill a Mockingbird, Niblett first emerged as a musician in 2001, having contributed to a split 7″ with Songs: Ohia on the Indiana-based Secretly Canadian Records.
Her first full-length, Sweet Heart Fever soon followed. Another 7″ was released in 2002, and 2003 saw the release of both the I Conjure Series EP and I Am, the latter of which was recorded by the revered engineer Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio Studios in Chicago.
Scout Niblett | Kiss
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=0uDlvl7jNn8
North American dates in spring 2005 with the Kills coincided the release of Kidnapped by Neptune, Niblett’s debut for Beggars Banquet. Continuing her partnership with Albini, she returned in October 2007 with This Fool Can Die Now, which also featured four duets with Will Oldham (aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy).
With her newest record, It’s Up To Emma, the shout of Scout echoes across the dark and shimmering water, taking the form of a thunderstorm, a puddle, a woman reaching out, to find for herself what’s it all about.
Scout Niblett | No Scrubs
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=qLjRJrx7PPs
Time Out New York once wrote that Ólöf Arnalds possess the kind of voice “that can silence a room, such is its sweetness”, while, elsewhere, that ambrosial yet mysteriously potent instrument has been labelled “otherworldly”, “stunning” and “bewitching”.
Countrywoman and sometime collaborator, Björk, once described Ólöf’s uniquely compelling vocal sound as “somewhere between a child and an old woman.”
Ólöf Arnalds | Í Nýju Húsi
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=VZ6OXIBhjwE
Over two critically lauded albums, that uncannily beautiful, acrobatic contralto, wedded to Ólöf’s liquid, finger-picked guitar or South American charango, intermittently ornamented by various degrees of chamber orchestration, has won legions of fans around the globe, abetted by a vigorous, peripatetic touring schedule.
All of which is good going for a singer who started her musical life fighting chronic stage nerves only to deliver her deeply personal songs in that most magical yet, let’s face it, hardly universally accessible mother tongue, Icelandic.
Ólöf Arnalds | Sudden Elevation
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=Sr2qj6ki40s
Her third studio album, the dreamy, delicate, and oddly regal-sounding Sudden Elevation, is her first outing to be delivered entirely in English.
With a voice that falls somewhere between the fairy princess croon of Joanna Newsom and the breathy intimacy of Vashti Bunyan, it can be difficult at times to separate the melodies from the vocal affectations, but like her fellow countrywoman Bjork Guðmundsdóttir, it only takes a song or two before the two begin to get along famously.
Ólöf Arnalds | Treat Her Kindly
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=PKbgfjKoDsw
Musically, Arnalds presents a vision of folk music that is almost Elizabethan, suggesting a world of romance, intrigue, and pastoral, summery castle grounds, albeit ones where Jónsi is the court jester and the court composer is Sufjan Stevens instead of Thomas Tallis.
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Scout Niblett & Ólöf Arnalds
Dj: Falko Teichmann
Monday, 03 June 2013 | 19:00 CET
Volksbühne | Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz | 10178 Berlin/Mitte
scoutniblett.com | olofarnalds.com | volksbuehne-berlin.de
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