Fjöður by Ótal

During his residency at Akron Soul Train, Óskar Þór Arngrímsson (Ótal) immersed himself in the sonic landscape of Akron, gathering field recordings from rivers, railroads, neighborhoods, industrial sites, and natural habitats throughout the city. These recordings became the foundation for Fjöður, a new ambient album that transforms everyday sounds into an evocative musical portrait of place.

Rather than documenting Akron as it appears, Fjöður explores how a place can be experienced through listening. Layering recordings of water, wildlife, wind, plants, trains, and machinery with modular synthesis, Arngrímsson reveals the quiet dialogue between the city's natural environment and its industrial legacy. The resulting compositions move slowly through shifting textures, inviting listeners to engage with Akron as both a physical landscape and an emotional one.

At the heart of the project is a search for what lies beneath the visible city. As Arngrímsson spent time recording throughout Akron, he became increasingly aware of an enduring presence embedded within the landscape—something ancient that persisted beneath roads, factories, rail lines, and rivers. Fjöður reflects this experience through sound, memory, and transformation, asking how environments hold traces of history long after they have changed.

Presented as both a recorded album and live audiovisual performance, Fjöður expands the traditional boundaries of an artist residency by positioning sound as a means of cultural interpretation. The work encourages audiences to slow down, listen closely, and rediscover the familiar through new sensory perspectives. In doing so, Arngrímsson offers a contemplative meditation on place, revealing Akron not only as a city to be seen, but as one to be heard.

As the culmination of his Akron Soul Train residency, Óskar Þór Arngrímsson (Ótal) premieres Fjöður through a live audiovisual performance on September 23, 2026 at the McDonough Museum of Art in Youngstown. Featuring live videography by Ella Medicus, the performance extends the residency beyond Akron, sharing the city's unique soundscape and creative identity with audiences across Northeast Ohio.

Óskar Þór Arngrímsson is an Iceland-born, Akron-based musician, sound artist, and composer. For his music he uses the artist name Ótal. Ótal is an Icelandic word meaning a “large unknown number”, “a myriad”. He operates under this concept when creating his work, searching for the indescribable. Primarily writing electronic ambient music on his modular synthesizer, he also collaborates with musicians on projects. Óskar has been active as a musician since his first band involvement in 2001. He holds a degree in sound engineering from the School of Audio Engineering Institute in London, followed by a focused study in drums at Félag Íslenskra Hljómlistarmanna, and in 2022 he completed a degree in music composition at the Iceland University of the Arts. He has performed at various music festivals and venues in Iceland and Europe, and since moving to the US in 2023, has performed at the Re:Sound festival through CUSP in Cleveland, and wrote and performed music for Hildur Jónsson’s exhibition Micro/Macro at the Kent State Museum. The music from this exhibition was released as his album titled ‘Heyr,’ which has been played multiple times on Star’s End ambient radio show from WXPN in Philadelphia. Heyr has also been released as a special Japanese edition for a boutique record store in Japan, called Heima Records. Most recently, Arngrímsson was commissioned by Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) to create a new quadraphonic sound installation for the 25th anniversary of Florasonic at Chicago's Lincoln Park Conservatory. Forthcoming, he will be performing twice in Philadelphia this autumn and will be releasing a second album.