A Closer Listen
What makes a community? What is it that gives us the feeling that we belong? How much must community members have in common, and how different can they be? OPIA started out as a one day festival run by Ólafur Arnalds and has since morphed into an artist community and a promising record label. OPIA Collection 001 is its second release after Silent Stories from Sofi Paez, which we reviewed here.
Back in 2015 Richard Allen, our main writer, wrote a great article called How To Be The Next Ólafur Arnalds. If you read it again now, almost a decade later, it’s remarkably prescient, as if he’s anticipating the Opia project itself. Rule 2 is “Collaborate”; Rule 3 is “be friendly”; Rule 4 is “recommend other musicians”; 6 is “say yes to small projects”; 7 is “remember where you came from”; rules that that seems to sum up the philosophy of OPIA. This video explains the concept really well, and showcases the OPIA Festival, which takes place this week in Utrecht — sadly sold out!
The album features 14 artists from around the world and there’s an equally diverse range of tracks, ranging from the gorgeous organ and piano layers of the pseudonymous Martin Martyn’s “Entraide”, via the spectacular choral thrill of “Gossamer” by Sink, to the astonishing tenderness conveyed in the piano and field recordings of “I Promise” by Alex Kozobolis (who we’ve featured here many times). Album opener “Wisteria” by Josiah Austin combines felt piano melancholy in 5/4 time with a brief uplifting chorus, but while the piano does feature prominently here, the second track, “Leading” by CJ Thomas expands outwards into entrancing orchestral instrumentation and immediately does away with the idea that this is just a piano album.
There are many wonderful moments. You’ll have your own favourites; personally I keep coming back to “The Seas That Made Us” by Sophia Subbavya Vastek, “Study of a Bull” by Rushab Nandha, and “Merge Forms” by Ttoa. But the strength of this album is not the individual tracks, good as they are, but the way they cohere despite their differences. It’s more than just the music, it’s also the artwork and the videos: the 14 different birds of the album cover were created by Community member Jonathan Newton, and the visualiser for the video above was made by brothers Ahmed and Mustafa Jasim, also of the Comminuty. What that shows is that the OPIA Community is a coming-together of like-minded but different individuals to create something beautiful. That’s a hopeful message, and one we particularly need in these dark times. (Garreth Brooke)
Mon May 27 00:01:20 GMT 2024