In early 2016, Ólafur Arnalds tweeted his Frikis fans to help him find the Moog Piano Bar tool. Thanks to this machine, an acoustic piano can send a MIDI numerical signal. Once obtained, he has worked for two years on the Status program, with which he has linked his piano to two other pianos. The algorithm, according to the agreements it reaches, causes the other two pianos to play a harmonic succession in the form of a harmonator.

As we enter the Gare du Midi hall, we soon realize that the music we humbly hear has come from the empty scene. They only operate the two-piano keys in symmetry, as if they were ghosts, and they arouse people's curiosity. Before everyone sits down, musicians come in: three violinists and a tonel accompany the Icelandic pianist and trap the room from the second where they start. From time to time, they are joined by a battery that adorns the post-classic atmosphere with a jazz touch.

They offer us a music that hangs time, timeless, galactic. Like the Björk, the mix of strings and synthesizers is transported in an extremely fixed way, as electronic sounds seem organic. In addition to the pianos and keyboards, some effects machines surround Ólafur, because it uses deep reverb and delay to decorate the songs, in the service of the brilliant poetry that their ghosts count.

The concert is entirely instrumental. With the lyricism that comes off the strings, you don't need to talk. To compensate him, Ólafur takes the word usu to refer to an anecdote related to songs. So we know, for example, that Fighting Shit started with the battery in a hardcore group, but that his mother did not support it and made him listen to Chopin until he convinced himself to start the piano. They end up with a song in their memory. As they play the cheeks and violins fall off the tablate, the audience sharpens their ears to take advantage of the latest notes of this magical concert.

But it was not the ones who were on the stage, but the ones who did this wonderful moment, because the work of the lighting technicians should also be highlighted. They decorate with nice games, respecting the rhythm and atmosphere of music, with a master of austerity and elegance.

The air of Ólafur Arnalds is like the moments that elapse until they wake up and sleep in the morning, murmur idyllic stories to the ears. The six musicians and the two ghosts that make up the band are on a European tour, but the concert they offered in Biarritz was the only one in the Basque Country. They will be in Guíxols, Catalonia, on July 19.