Obel's Opus

On her second album Aventine, which appeared in 2013, Agnes Obel was beefing up the intimate, quiet, reflexive sounds of her first, the grandiose Philarmonics. Three years later her third effort, Citizen of Glass, isn’t resting on any laurels, and proves that the Danish singer who moved to Berlin still knows how to develop her style. Available from the 21st of October (but available for pre-order from today in Hi-Res 24bit), this third album is imaginative and skilfully avoids old ground. You get the impression that Obel wants to expand on her compositional methods, explore her minimalist relationship with music, and even question her use of strings along the way. All this to move away from her habits, and find something original once more, like on the track Familiar, where Obel sings a duet with … herself! On it, her voice is doubled and warped, crossing over to the deep side and becoming almost masculine in the process, the result of which is spellbinding. In fact, as an album, Citizen of Glass is much more spellbinding than Philarmonics or Aventine, thanks to the scope of its ambition. It’s bigger, more ample, fleshed out. From the orchestral arrangements of Red Virgin Soil themselves to the haunting quality of the vocals, this album grows gradually until the listener is totally captivated. It’s going to be a long summer waiting for this one, but in the meantime here’s the already famous single:

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