Singer Agnes Obel talks to Dominic Smith about her music journey and the latest tour

AGNES Obel’s perfectionist streak has caused her stage fright and endless failed projects.

But the fastidious tic delivered a flurry of prizes once she’d finally managed to commit her music to record.

Philharmonics, released back in 2010, scored Obel a Danish number one, five prizes at the Danish Music Awards and has sold almost half a million copies.

The follow up, Aventine, is another collection of sparse melancholic ballads by the classically-trained pianist who had wanted to make an album since her teenage years.

It was only after leaving her native Denmark for Berlin she felt confident enough to take her ideas further than the practice room.

“I had been working with the aim of making an album since I was 17,” she says ahead of two rare UK dates, including one in Brighton.

“Then I was with different band projects, but every time we were close to finishing something I would be the one who would back out.

“I know now when I look back it was because it was not the right project and I wasn’t convinced.

“I needed time to be away from my own background and my own history to find out what I really wanted to do.”

She grew up in a musical house in Copenhagen and wrote introspective piano songs she kept to herself.

“Moving to Berlin I spent a lot of time being alone and my music grew out of that. I met other people who made electronic music and they worked alone.

“That was a big inspiration to see. I realised I could also do that as one person on my own. I could build songs up alone. I didn’t have to go into a big studio or have a band.”

A cello on Aventine expands the scope and sound of Obel’s singular piano and vocals of Philharmonics. Again, it reveals her love of working within narrow musical boundaries.

Because she produces and mixes her own music, she prefers to use fewer layers; the more you put in the more complex it gets. She likes to learn every new instrument she adds to the mix – and even taught herself how to record strings before making Aventine.

“I feel it gets more powerful when the arrangements and production are sparser and almost transparent. You can hear every instrument. I like the simplicity.”

It reflects her favourite classical folk bands which use only piano and flute or piano and violin. Also her favourite contemporary music: Portishead, Scott Walker, Cocteau Twins and Meredith Monk.

While the rest of the German capital ceaselessly produces music on modular synthesizers, Obel is searching more obscure instruments to explore and to exploit.

She’s penned some new material on a spinet, an instrument from the harpsichord family, popular in the 17th and 18th centuries, which looks like a piano with black and white keys reversed. And after an opportunity arose at Denmark’s Royal Theatre (Obel performed as part of a three-night Stravinsky event) she found herself becoming enchanted with the celesta, an instrument which takes its name from its “celestial” tinkling sound.

“I like instruments which make me curious. If I don’t understand them I feel like I can tune into their history and then tell my own stories through all of that without really knowing everything. It’s maybe a way to trigger my own imagination.”

Agnes Obel, All Saints Church, The Drive, Hove, Tuesday, October 21