Late Night Tales: Agnes Obel

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. Then 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 Si- mone, 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.

Tracklist

1. Henry Mancini - The Evil Theme

2. Roger Webb - Moonbird

3. Eden Ahbez - Eden's Island

4. Lee Hazlewood - The Nights

5. Nora Dean - Ay Ay Ay Ay (Angle-Lala)

6. Yello - Great Mission

7. Tamba Trio, Quarteto Em Cy - 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 cover version)

14. Agnes Obel - Bee Dance

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