Since bursting onto the music scene in the earlier 2000s, Olafur Arnalds has made waves with his eclectic, experiment and unusual style. Never afraid of trying new things and even making his own instruments to help his craft, the Icelandic star is hitting the road with his biggest stage set up to date. Ahead of his show in Brighton, Jamie Walker spoke to him about redefining music, his newest musical equipment and what fans can expect from this massive production.

Hi Olafur, for anyone who doesn’t know your music how would you describe your style?

It’s elements of classical music mixed with electronic, hip-hop, pop, ambient.

It has always been subtly flavoured by my own musical interests but my new album, Re:member, is my breaking out-of-a-shell album.

It’s me taking the raw influences that I have from all these different musical genres and not filtering them.

I always have my hands in many different projects at once, and I feel that this album represents that.

What do you like about touring the UK?

I’ve always felt a lot of support from the here.

UK audiences are some of the best in the world.

It’s as simple as that.

Is Brighton somewhere you’ve visited before? If so what do you make of it?

Yes, but only on tour. I love the vibe of the city and think it’s beautiful.

Tell me about the Stratus software you’re using on this tour. What does an instrument like this do to your music?

I designed STRATUS with my friend Halldór Eldjárn.

Basically it’s a software that sends instructions to two player pianos, and the two become one and play together.

I sets the values that the software feeds to the pianos – the rhythm, the tempo – and those are triggered by chords or notes I plays.

It almost feels like playing jazz improv.

The other pianos are reacting to what I do, based on our software coding.

But the interesting thing is that I also have to react on what they do because there’s an element of randomness built into STRATUS and I don’t always know what the outcome will be.

All this very much became they are the focal point of the new album.

Finding new ways to jolt the creative process.

In a live setting the pianos are an integral part of the performance.

Each time they are played is a little different which means every performance is unique.

How fun do you find it to be doing things that nobody else is doing?

It’s not really about that.

It’s more about challenging myself creatively and trying to bring my music to places I wouldn’t think of otherwise.

What can people expect from this live show?

Lots of new music that I’ve never performed live before and some older songs with fresh, new arrangements.

This is my biggest production to date, by far, and I’m very happy to be able to bring it across the world in the coming months.

Why is this the show to see this year?

You will not find a more ambitious show in this genre.