Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Agnes Obel returns with the highly anticipated new album The Meaning of Flowers, following the acclaimed release of Myopia (2020).

Originally from Denmark and now based in Berlin, Obel wrote, arranged, recorded and produced the new work entirely in her Berlin studio. Across 12 atmospheric, genre-spanning tracks, The Meaning of Flowers captures a period of profound personal and creative transformation.

Inspired by the birth of her first child, Obel explores themes of new beginnings, connection and metamorphosis, reflecting on how new life changes the body, the mind and one’s relationship with the world.

Her new music draws on a wide range of influences—from the poetry of Enheduanna (the world’s earliest known named author) and the philosophical ideas of Hannah Arendt and Emanuele Coccia to the Danish pop scene of the 1980s and ’90s.

TRACK LISTING

01 The Meaning of Flowers
02 Laymelli
03 Gemini
04 Never Been
05 Blood so Red
06 No Such Thing as Silence
07 Deem Me Now
08 Jenn's on the Way
09 Beyond the Sun
10 Tangerine
11 Don't Look Down
12 Faustian Deal

For almost a decade, Agnes Obel has been one of the most independent and original artists in contemporary music. Now she has returned with new music, releasing the enchanting single “Island Of Doom”, ahead of the release of her highly anticipated new album Myopia–through Deutsche Grammophon, Universal Music Group’s prestigious Yellow Label, and Blue Note in North America.

Following the same principles as with her previous albums (Philharmonics, Aventine and CitizenOfGlass), which she completed as a one-woman project in her own Berlin home studio, Obel has been under self-imposed creative isolation with the removal of all outside influences and distraction in the writing, recording and mixing process. “The albums I’ve worked on have all required that I build a bubble of some kind in which everything becomes about the album.”

“For me the production is intertwined with the lyrics and story behind the songs,” says Obel. This is precisely what makes her music so compelling and the same is true with Myopia. “Paradoxically, for me I need to create my own myopia to make music.” Obel was experimenting with techniques of recording processing, warping and pitching down vocals, strings, piano, celesta and lutheal piano, finding ways to melt these elements together to become one and twisting them in a way that you feel at home within the sound she conjures throughout the record.

Although Obel’s music can often curate a monologue of modern-day dystopian-esque news stories that we are all now subject to, the contents of “Island Of Doom” are much more personal, as she explains: “The song is made up of pitched-down piano and cello pizzicato and vocals, all choirs are pitched down and up… In my experience when someone close to you dies it is simply impossible to comprehend that you can’t ever talk to them or reach them somehow ever again. They are in many ways still alive because in your consciousness nothing has changed, they’re still there with everyone else you know.

“For me Myopia is an album about trust and doubt. Can you trust yourself or not? Can you trust your own judgments? Can you trust that you will do the right thing? Can you trust your instincts and what you are feeling? Or are your feelings skewed?” – Obel.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Obel's latest opus challenges the backdrop of beautifully played modern classical instrumentation and meditative, soaring strings with a decidedly modern focus on vocal manipulation and production trickery, crafting a delightfully immersive and stunningly beautiful whole.

TRACK LISTING

1. Camera's Rolling 
2. Broken Sleep
3. Island Of Doom
4. Roscian
5. Myopia
6. Drosera
7. Can't Be
8. Parliament Of Owls
9. Promise Keeper
10. Won't You Call Me

“To me, sounds have always been more interesting than words,” says Agnes Obel. “I love it when the voice becomes an instrument and you almost forget it’s a human voice.” Never is this more apt than on this beautifully programmed and bewitching selection of music.

Agnes’ 2010 debut album Philharmonics went platinum in France and Belgium and, unsurprisingly, quintuple platinum in her native Denmark, where she also won five Danish Music Awards (equivalent to the Brits) in 2011. The follow-up Aventine, released in late 2013, was imbued with the same measured calmness as her debut. It went platinum in Belgium and gold in Denmark and France.

For the mix you have in your hands it feels almost as if Agnes has scoured the world looking for kindred spirits – or kindred songs. There’s a quietude about it all, the antithesis of a rush hour, like a frozen lake on a Sunday morning. This is aided by a veritable cornucopia of new Obel material, including a haunting reading of Danish song ‘Glemmer Du’, Inger Christensen’s ‘Poem About Death’ set to original music, and an Agnes original, ‘Bee Dance’.

Among them, there’s the enigmatic Jamaican singer Nora Dean who weighs in with the hypnotic and slinky Duke Reid production, ‘Ay Ay Ay Ay (Angie-Lala)’ and the sparse, sardonic ‘Party Girl’ by Michelle Gurevich, so good it inspired the eponymous French movie. There are the plangent voices, The Bulgarian Folklore Choir, Nina Simone, Ray Davies and Agnes herself, ringing true. Somehow, Ms Obel makes even makes the electronic tracks bow to her needs as with Yello whose ‘Great Mission’ is more Martin Denny than Underworld and cult Greek composer Lena Platonos’ ‘Bloody Shadows From A Distance’ pulses gently rather than throbs and Can’s recently rediscovered ‘Obscura Primavera’, unusually hushed.

"I was surprised at how much time I ended up spending on this. I collected all the songs together with my partner Alex and we just spent time listening to records, trying to see what would fit together. Some of the music I’ve included here is on mixtapes we made when we were just friends as teenagers. Each one of the tracks produces stories in my head." - Agnes Obel, February 2018

TRACK LISTING

1. Henry Mancini - The Evil Theme
2. Roger Webb - Moonbird
3. Eden Ahbez - Eden's Island
4. Lee Hazelwood - The Nights
5. Nora Dean - Ay Ay Ay Ay (Angle-Lala)
6. Yello - Great Mission
7. Quarteto Em Cy With Tamba Trio - Aleluia
8. Lena Platonos - Bloody Shadows From A Distance
9. Ray Davies - I Go To Sleep
10. Alfred Schnittke - Piano Quintet, V
11. Agnes Obel - Stretch Your Eyes (Ambient Acapella)
12. The Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Choir – Pilentze Pee (Pilentze Sings)
13. Agnes Obel - Glemmer Du (Exclusive Track)
14. Agnes Obel - Bee Dance (Exclusive Track)
15. Sibylle Baier - The End
16. Michelle Gurevich - Party Girl
17. CAN - Oscura Primavera
18. David Lang - I Lie
19. Nina Simone - Images (Live In New York 1964)
20. Agnes Obel - Poem About Death (Exclusive Track)

Highly anticipated stunning third album from Danish born singersongwriter Agnes Obel, the follow up to her UK breakthrough record ‘Aventine’.

Recorded, mixed and produced by Obel in Berlin, where she currently resides, ‘Citizen Of Glass’ is a work of haunting beauty and an expansion of Obel’s mesmerising world.

The title surfaced in Obel’s mind while touring ‘Aventine’ and, inspired by modern composers, the album conceptually and thematically revolves around the leitmotif of transparency.

On this record Obel experiments with her vocals in inventive new ways, in order to manipulate them into alternative versions of her own voice, as can be heard on first single ‘Familiar’.

Obel also incorporates a number of different instruments, such as the Trautonium (an extremely rare instrument that possesses a glistening, glass-like sound), alongside vibraphone, cembalo, cellos and more.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: Agnes Obel has a voice so exquisite, pure and crystalline it seems as if it might shatter into a thousand beautiful shards at any moment. Up until this release it has been given plenty of room by a simple, beautiful debussy/jazz inspired piano accompaniment; but while 'Citizen Of Glass' does share the same sparse framework, it is lent added texture and depth by the addition of rare and unusual instruments, again applied with sparing delicacy to frame, rather than intrude on Obel's beautiful intonation.

TRACK LISTING

Stretch Your Eyes
Familiar
Red Virgin Soil
It’s Happening Again
Stone
Trojan Horses
Citizen Of Glass
Golden Green
Grasshopper
Mary

‘Aventine’ is the second album release from Berlin-based Danish phenomenon Agnes Obel, the follow up to her critically acclaimed debut ‘Philharmonics’ of 2010 which has sold close to 500,000 worldwide since release.

Originally from Copenhagen, Agnes has lived in Berlin since 2006, where ‘Aventine’ was recorded at her Chalk Wood Studios between January and May 2013.

Like ‘Philharmonics’, the new album was written, arranged, and produced by Agnes, who provides piano and vocals. The album features a small ensemble including cellist Anne Müller, who has also played with Nils Frahm, along with Mika Posen of Timber Timbre playing the violin and viola on ‘The Curse’, ‘Pass Them By’ and ‘Fivefold’. Robert Kondorossi of Budzillus plays guitar on ‘Pass Them By’.

Building on the sonic template of her debut, ‘Aventine’ is a deeper and darker (though none the less elegantly sublime) affair, with songs of genuine heart stopping beauty in the likes of first single ‘The Curse’, ‘Dorian’ and ‘Fuel To Fire’.

Agnes is a Danish singer, songwriter and musician. She began playing the piano when she was a child and in her late teens she founded the Copenhagen based band, Sohio, together with the Danish musician and producer Elton Theander. The two worked together for several years but nowadays she writes, plays, sings, records and produces her material on her own.

Feeling musically related to Roy Orbison, Agnes currently lives in Berlin and possesses the rare gift of a songbird’s voice, bringing to mind Ane Brun, Joanna Newsom or even Ricki Lee Jones.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Beautiful and delicate piano led folk from this Danish starlet. The arrangements are kept simple and minimal allowing her amazing vox to take centre stage.

TRACK LISTING

1. Falling Catching
2. Riverside
3. Brother Sparrow
4. Just So
5. Beast
6. Louretta
7. Avenue
8. Philharmonics
9. Close Watch
10. Wallflower
11. Over The Hill
12. On Powdered Ground