Agnes Obel

Agnes Caroline Thaarup Obel (born 28 October 1980) is a Danish singer, songwriter, and musician based in Berlin.

Agnes Caroline Thaarup Obel was born in Gentofte, Copenhagen, on 28 October 1980, the elder of two siblings.

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, a civil servant, used to play Bartók and Chopin on the piano at home.

Obel learned to play the piano at a very young age.

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."

During her childhood, she found inspiration in Jan Johansson's work.

Johansson's songs, European folk tunes done in a jazzy style, have been a strong influence on her musically.

In 1990, she joined a small band as a singer and bass guitar player.

The group appeared at a festival and recorded some tunes.

In 1994, she had a small part in the short film The Boy Who Walked Backwards / Drengen der gik baglæns by Thomas Vinterberg.

Her brother, Holger Thaarup, played the main character in the movie.

Credited as Agnes Obel, she appears in two scenes.

She plays a pupil who shares her table with the new student Andreas (Holger Thaarup).

She attended high school at Det frie Gymnasium, a free school where she was able to play a good deal of music.

However, she quickly dropped out of school.

"At seventeen,(...) I met a man who was running a studio. I gave up quickly my musical studies to learn sound techniques."

Her debut album, Philharmonics (2010), was released by PIAS Recordings, and was certified gold in June 2011 by the Belgian Entertainment Association (BEA) after selling 10,000 units.

Obel debuted as a solo singer with her first album Philharmonics (2010).

She wrote, played, sang, recorded, and produced all the material herself.

"The orchestral or symphonic music never interested me. I always was attracted by simple melodies, almost childish.(…) I put a long time before writing texts because the music seems to tell already a story, to project images."

According to Obel, her piano is much more than an instrument: "The piano and the singing are two equal things to me – maybe not inseparable but very connected. You can say they are like two equal voices."

She has said that, "The music is the most obvious means to express what I am, where I am."

All of the songs on Philharmonics are original work except "Close Watch" ("I Keep A Close Watch" by John Cale) & "Katie Cruel" (a folk traditional; as the iTunes bonus track of the album).

At the Danish Music Awards in November 2011, Obel won five prizes, including Best Album and Best Debut Artist.

In Live à Paris, released on 11 April 2011 on iTunes, she sings a cover of Elliott Smith's "Between The Bars".

Furthermore, Obel did a duet with Editors singer Tom Smith, performing "The Christmas Song" by Mel Tormé – to be found on the Smith & Burrows album Funny Looking Angels (released in November 2011).

Philharmonics has garnered generally positive reviews with, for example, James Skinner from the BBC saying that "the compositions... are slow, sombre, sepulchral even, but not without a sense of occasionally singular beauty".

In the French cultural magazine Les Inrockuptibles, Johanna Seban spoke about a "disarming purity" and stated, "There is, in these deeply melancholic ballads, the clearness and reassuring nobility of bedside discs."

In Musicomh, Ben Edgell wrote that Obel "sings with a hushed and tender grace that waxes wistful and serene over yearning cello, harp, and piano vignettes. She's a fey siren, with a dusky, near-whispered vocal that speaks to Ane Brun or Eva Cassidy."

French journalists have called her "A revelation to follow".

Obel's first album was also a commercial success.

In March 2011, she appeared for the first time in the United States.

At the South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin, she performed all the songs on the album.

Her second album Aventine (2013) received positive reviews and charted in the top 40 of the charts in nine countries.

Obel's third album Citizen of Glass (2016) received acclaim from music critics and the IMPALA Album of the Year Award 2016.

In 2018, she curated and performed a compilation album for Late Night Tales series titled Late Night Tales: Agnes Obel.

It features artists such as Nina Simone, Henry Mancini, Ray Davies, Michelle Gurevich, Can, and Yello.

Her fourth album, Myopia, was released in February 2020.