Island Songs follows on from a number of projects by Ólafur Arnalds, such as Found Songs and Living Room Songs – both of which were composed and recorded within the space of one week – which have specific start and end points. Arnalds takes this idea a step further in Island Songs, bringing his music to seven locations spread out across his native Iceland over a period of seven weeks, hence the title. Allowing one week rather than one day per composition also gives Arnalds more creative breathing space to collaborate with different musicians in each one of the locations.

To get an immediate sense of what Island Songs is about, I’d recommend first watching the accompanying DVD, directed by Baldvin Zophoníasson. It starts off with a close-up of poet and one-time schoolteacher Einar Georg Einarsson reading a poem about a river and the musical sounds it makes. Arnalds’s piano fades into the background with a gently rocking two-note figure reminiscent of Philip Glass. A melodic idea gradually emerges beneath the pattern. The poem ends and the sound of a string quartet rises to the surface, its shapes echoing Barber’s Adagio.

It’s an effective and powerful opening to an imaginative song-cycle, impressive both in its sonic variety and its creative depth. Arnalds is best known for his moody, brooding soundtrack to the crime drama series Broadchurch (for which he received a Bafta award), and tracks such as ‘Öldurót’ and ‘Doria’ are more immediately film-like in quality; but the most interesting tracks are those which feature the South Iceland Chamber Choir in the Pärt-like ‘Raddir’ and the brass trio in ‘Dalur’. Their contributions give a slightly rough hew to Arnalds’s often smooth and polished musical surfaces, and confirm the composer’s view that ‘ultimately it is people rather than places that inspire music and art’.