The starkly melodic, often unsettling music of Olafur Arnalds is as integral to Broadchurch as those towering cliffs, or Olivia Colman’s orange jacket. But even before Arnalds was hired to write the soundtrack for ITV’s megahit, he was unwittingly influencing it. Writer Chris Chibnall binged on the Icelandic composer’s previous albums of instrumental melancholia while mapping out the whole saga. Such a symbiotic relationship between a musician and TV show is rare: perhaps the closest equivalent is Barrington Pheloung, who would smuggle dot-dash references to potential suspects into his elegant suites for Inspector Morse.
Appearing as part of the Glasgow film festival, Arnalds himself comes across as a shy, drily witty tinkerer, capable of playing his grand piano with almost heartbreaking delicacy, before fluidly switching to a vintage synth or laptop, to modulate the mix. As well as a string quartet, he has recruited two French-horn players and a drummer who doubles as a trombonist. The extra brass adds a raspier, evil edge to tracks like The Journey, a plangent, seven-minute masterclass in building tension. Stripped of the distractions of visuals and ad breaks, the emotional cues submerged in Arnalds’s Broadchurch themes seem to break the surface more often. Combined with a seated, rapt audience, it creates a tangible atmosphere of foreboding, as plaintive piano figures are stalked by sparse strings and ominous swells of electronica.
When singer Arnór Dan sidles on to the stage halfway through, it’s almost a relief; his fluttering, soaring vocals add a more relatable facet to So Close and So Far, two beautiful songs that are usually interrupted by an ITV continuity announcer. But it’s clear Arnalds is more than just a Broadchurch brand extension. He debuts a haunting new track written on this tour, and stages a final coup de theatre during his solo piano encore, that suggests he could even teach Chibnall a thing or two about how to engineer a genuinely satisfying ending.
• RNCM, Manchester, box office: 0161-907 5555, 26 February. Howard Assembly Room, Leeds, box office: 0844 848 2700, 27 February. Tour details here.
