Danish singer-songwriter Agnes Obel has released the first of a series of live videos. Filmed at her sold out concerts at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust, ‘Won’t You Call Me’ is an intimate live performance of the beautiful album closer from Obel’s 2020 album Myopia.
Read our interview with Agnes Obel on the making of her album Myopia.
Agnes Obel (on piano and vocals), plays alongside her all-female band: Anne Bakker (Viola, Vocals & Mellotron), Louise Duggan (Mallet & Vocals) and Kristina Koropecki (Cello, Vocals & Organelle).
The video was produced by long-term collaborator and partner Alex Brüel Flagstad, who treated the live video footage in a heavily processed style.
I treated the footage by rescanning it several times. The footage was sent through different monitors where it was re-filmed by an old tube camera. I like how the tube makes a ghostly tracking effect out of movements and the light and how the tube overall softens the image with this old TV technology that looks like a mixture between super-8 film and VHS. For me it makes a sort of nostalgic fog, that hopefully leave space for the music.” – Alex Brüel Flagstad
Following ‘Won’t You Call Me’, three more videos from the series, all live performances of songs taken from Myopia, will be released in the coming weeks.
“For me Myopia is an album about trust and doubt. Can you trust yourself or not? Can you trust your own judgments? Can you trust that you will do the right thing? Can you trust your instincts and what you are feeling? Or are your feelings skewed?” – Agnes Obel
ABOUT AGNES OBEL AND MYOPIA
For almost a decade, Agnes Obel has been one of the most independent and original artists in contemporary music. In 2020 she returned with the highly anticipated new album Myopia – her first release through iconic German label Deutsche Grammophon.
Following the same principles as her previous albums (Philharmonics, Aventine and Citizen Of Glass) – which she completed as a one-woman project in her own Berlin home studio – Obel went into self-imposed creative isolation to produce Myopia, removing of all outside influences and distractions to complete the album’s writing, recording and mixing.
Throughout Myopia, Obel experiments with techniques of recording – processing, warping and pitching down vocals, strings, piano, celesta and piano luthéal. She finds ways to meld these elements together to become one, twisting them in such a way that you feel immersed in the sound.