SEPTEMBER 2021 | SCANDINAVIAN MONTHLY
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Music The Incredible Sound of Iconic Danish Singer/ Songwriter Text Tor Kjølberg
Danish singer/songwriter and pianist Agnes Obel (b. 1980) debuted with her album Philharmonics in 2010. It was certified gold the following year (June 2011). Her follow-up took three years to make in a Berlin home studio. Luckely, it was a beauty. Read more about the incredible sound of iconic Danish singer/songwriter. Her second album, Aventine, was made the same way as her first one: in her home studio in Berlin. “I did it first time round because I had no money and no label,” said Obel. “But I realized it worked for me. I can write words and immediately record them, which brings a freshness to it. It gives me freedom.” School drop-out Agnes Obel was born in Copenhagen and she and her younger brother, Holger, grew up in an unconventional environment, with a father who had three children from another marriage. He loved to collect strange objects and instruments. Her mother, Katja Obel, was a solicitor and musician and she used to play Bartók and Chopin on the piano at home. Obel took up piano playing at the age of six.
Despite plenty of creative freedom at school, Agnes dropped out before finishing and joined a program for younger, troubled kids who wanted to become record producers. She was soon studying classical piano, though she went off-piste when she became obsessed with Swedish jazz pianist Jan Johansson. She joined a band at 11, and part of her teens was spent playing bass and singing in a band that played the Beatles and Prince covers at children festivals. About her learning, she said: “I had a classical piano teacher who told me that I shouldn’t play what I didn’t like. So, I just played what I liked. I was never forced to play anything else. The music chose me.” Related: Award-Winning Danish Jazz Saxophonist
her DIY production is exquisite, with her arrangements of strings, piano and a single cello creating a beautiful, melancholic sound under her delicate vocal. The British newspaper The Guardian called Aventine a “wonderful autumn album…exceedingly good at conveying weariness and disorientation through sound.”
Obel studied music production and
Agnes sees music as an incredibly
