Ballads from Berlin

Danish singer and pianist Agnes Obel tells Ed Power how the edgy German city inspired her hit album Philharmonics

AGNES OBEL needs to sit down. The Danish singer-songwriter has just seen her new year diary. In January she had hoped to start work on her next album, the follow-up to chart-topping debut Philharmonics. A rethink may be in order.

“I opened my computer a few moments ago and saw all of the things already planned for,” she says. “It’s quite intimidating. Everything is filling up so fast. There is not a lot of time to spare.”

Obel has been on a roller-coaster for the past 18 months. With her popularity continuing to increase, there is little reason to believe things are about to slow down. Since Philharmonics became a surprise hit, first in Germany, then Denmark and the Netherlands, she has hardly had a moment to herself. She works hard and appreciates her success. But sometimes it can be exhausting.

“You do have moments where you go, ‘oh God, where am I now?’. I never remember signing up to do all these tours. It wasn’t a conscious decision. Often these things just happen. It sweeps you away.”

Obel has been compared to Bjork. There is something to this, to the extent that her music is unconventional and distinctly on the eerie side. However, her songs also pulse with a very un-Bjorkian human warmth and a generosity of spirit that may remind Irish audiences of Lisa Hannigan.

It is best to state that she sounds like nobody but herself. Accompanied by piano and occasional hints of string, Obel has a gorgeous, breathy voice that imbues the most straightforward couplet with a haunting ambivalence. It is not uncommon to experience shivers when listening to her, but you are never sure whether the tingles are of wonder or dread.

Despite her touring-related frustrations, Obel is not grumbling. “Actually I feel very privileged to be doing what I am doing,” she says. “I have travelled the world and performed in many wonderful venues. I feel very, very happy for what I have achieved. How could you not appreciate being in this position? It is wonderful.”

Her gratitude may have to do with the fact she found success relatively late. Obsessed by music since early adolescence, Obel had passed through countless garage bands and wannabe Radioheads at school and university. It might surprise fans of Philharmonics to hear that, in her youth, she loved loud, messy rock music. The problem was that none of the groups ever managed to attract much of an audience.

She owes her big break to serendipity. Having moved from Copenhagen to Berlin, partly to take advantage of cheap rents, Obel started writing piano ballads in her apartment. Intending to share them with friends and family, she posted the songs on the internet, which is where an executive from a German advertising agency stumbled upon them. When one of her tracks ended up on a mobile phone advert, a phenomenon was born. Suddenly she was a top 40 star in her adopted country.

“I had written these songs for myself and specifically for piano,” she recalls. “I knew they would not work in a band setting. They needed to stand alone. When I was composing them, I never thought other people would hear them. They were very personal.”

Obel misses Denmark but explains that, for now, Berlin is home. Copenhagen is a wonderful city, she says. However, the standard of living is so high, the social safety net so all pervasive, it can be difficult to find something to lash out against. She likens it to a parent clasping their child to its bosom. It is easy to be lulled into a blissful doze and to forget to live your life. As an artist, vast, stark, edgy Berlin better fits her temperament.

Between tours, she has found interesting ways to stay busy. She duets with Tom Smith of the gloomy British rock band Editors on the Christmas record he has recorded with Andy Burrow, formerly of Razorlight. Their version of the old Nat King Cole standard The Christmas Song is beautiful and a little bit ghostly.

She also popped home to Denmark to sweep the board at the local version of the Grammys, winning five awards, including the gongs for album and songwriter of the year. Obel is a star in her home country. Laughing, she acknowledges she is in imminent danger of becoming Denmark’s biggest music export since Aqua (apparently people in Copenhagen do not understand that, among foreigners, Danish music is synonymous with Barbie Girl).

Obel isn’t played on radio and you probably wouldn’t recognise her if she sat beside you on the bus. So how has Philharmonics become so popular, so quickly? “It is the internet, ” she says. “People can check out music on blogs, on YouTube. They aren’t thinking about where the song is from or if they should like it. They hear it and respond to it. National borders don’t matter — the music gets out there. That has definitely helped me find an audience.”

Assuming she does eventually find time to write her next record, does she worry about second album pressure? Her first LP was composed in a vacuum. This time tens of thousands of fans — to say nothing of a record label and management team — are waiting. She smiles, as if to indicate the problem is taken care of.

“I got to write a lot of it before Philharmonics came out. There was a delay of some months before that record was finished and it was finally released. In the space between, I put together some new songs — to get the boredom out of my system. So I already have material, which I have gradually been introducing on the road. I can’t wait to actually record it.”

* Agnes Obel plays Vicar Street, Dublin tomorrow and Triskel Christchurch, Cork on Sunday.