Winter Light album coming Dec 6th, 2021
Dear Olga Lovers!
We love you too!
We are delighted to announce the release of our 2021 Christmas album, Winter Light, on all platforms this December 6th.
Pre-order the Winter Light album at our Shop page.
It has arrived seemingly rather soon after our recent release of Aurora earlier this year hasn’t it?
However, Aurora was actually recorded and mastered mostly during 2020. It seemed like the next natural step was to keep on tempo and try and use the COVID period constructively and concentrate on what brings us together, and for many, well it’s Christmas. For those of you who don’t really celebrate Christmas we really hope this album also might provide a selection of songs designed to take you on a journey, embracing the dark but also recognising the necessity and comfort of light.
For us the word Christmas is that special tradition for gathering together families and friends, to eat, play, talk, walk, share and love each other. Especially in times of adversity is this even more special. Therefore for Winter Light we reunited with former Olga singers Gulian van Nierop and Bjarni Guðmundsson.
We are also delighted to collaborate again with the ears and wisdom of sound engineers Diddi Fiðla and Pétur Hjaltested, who have so successfully guided Olga through the popular Vikings album from 2016, as well as the debut album from 2014.
To set the scene, we all met up together and recorded Winter Light in July 2021, in the sweltering heat of Iceland (13 degrees phew!) and spent a very happy week recording, at the historical site of the iconic viking Snorri Sturluson. Our biggest challenge was the rather robust wind and the bell tower making odd low primeval noises in the background. We hope this was a good omen, and despite the outside strange murmurs we had a marvellous time making music together.
We have also brought back the artistic talent of Milwaukee-based artist James Barany whose beautiful artwork on Aurora has been a smash hit for all of us. And now he sets the scene for Winter Light.
We are also delighted to welcome Chris Johnson who arranged our version of ‘Go Tell it from the Mountain.’ Our thanks also to Gulian for his arrangement of ‘A Spaceman Came Travelling’. Extra claps and well done’s for all arrangers!
Winter light takes a similar approach to Aurora - a kind of through-sung album that emerges out of a dark space and forges through a section of storm, adversity and darkness towards a more happy, dancing place that finally rests in the contemplation and the simple marvelling of the birth of a new born child.
As always, there are the roots of Olga, drawing on Scandanavian folk, traditionals, spirituals, and once again we try to collage this alongside the more familiar, the odd and lesser known choices.
There are many teasers out there to enjoy of the forthcoming show, and we hope so much that we will perform this fresh new show for you this Christmas. Much love from the North and if you like the show…. Go tell it on the Mountain… or a small heuvel in Holland.
Best for now, Olga’s Matt
