Agnes Obel is a Danish singer-songwriter from Gentofte, Denmark, associated with ambient pop, art pop, folk, pop and singer-songwriter music. She lives in Berlin and also lived in Copenhagen.

Early life and musical background

Agnes Caroline Thaarup Obel is born in 1980. She comes from a musical family and learns piano at a very young age. Her mother plays Bartók and Chopin at the piano, and during childhood she draws inspiration from Jan Johansson, whose jazz-influenced treatments of European folk tunes shape her early musical interests.

As a child she attends Det frie Gymnasium and later Roskilde University. At the age of seven she performs in a small band, singing and playing bass guitar. The group appears at a festival and records several tracks.

Band work and solo career

With the help of Danish musician and producer Elton Theander, she founds the Copenhagen-based band Sohio. After several years of working together, she begins her solo career with Philharmonics, her first album, released by PIAS Recordings in Denmark, Norway, Germany and other European countries. The album is certified gold from February 2011.

Her second album, Aventine, follows in 2013.

Musical style and working methods

Obel writes, plays, sings, records and produces all of her material herself. Her influences include Roy Orbison, Joni Mitchell and PJ Harvey, as well as the French composers Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Erik Satie.