Land, Oh!

Nanna Øland Fabricius, better known by her stage name Oh Land, has a secret: She likes to watch people on trains. “It’s a little voyeuristic,” she laughs, “but I love studying people on the subway and overhearing people’s conversations. I take a lot of inspiration from stories in real life and then make them into these more mythological stories, almost like fairy tales.”

Oh Land’s songs are exactly like fairy tales—little snapshots of stories and feelings, with a whimsical quality that could have relegated her to the sphere of music inhabited by run-of-the-mill Manic Pixie Dream Girls. Also like fairy tales, Oh Land’s songs are complex and strange and beautiful, a glimpse into the singer’s rich inner life.

On a phone call from her home studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Fabricius sounds rather cheerful, her Danish accent giving her words a smooth, almost creamy quality that’s nothing short of enchanting. It’s difficult not to get lulled into a dream state as she explains the meaning behind her latest album’s title, Earth Sick.

“I read about astronauts, when they’ve been out in space for a long time and come back to Earth, they get this—it’s the opposite of diving sickness—their muscles and their bones start aching because they’re not used to gravity, and that’s called Earth sickness. And I thought that was such cool imagery, such a cool thought, that you can estrange yourself from something you’re made to fit into, and then suddenly you can’t figure it out. Your body is not an Earth creature anymore.”

“I try to make everything bigger live,” she explains. Unlike other artists, who have a set structure for the way they perform their songs live, Fabricius says that it’s crucial for her to be able to give in to impulses and improvise onstage. “The most important thing for me is that [my music] is a living thing that’s allowed to change and not necessarily sound exactly like the album, because then there’s no point to going to a concert—you can just listen to the album at home.”

Oh Land’s fans will have the chance to experience Earth Sick live in Brooklyn when the singer appears at Music Hall of Williamsburg on May 8, and she’ll return to the city later this month for a May 25 show at Bowery Ballroom. For her tour, Fabricius plans to outfit her musicians in bright pastels and elaborate costumes aimed to trigger ’90s childhood nostalgia. The tour itself takes cues from classic theater and dance, a world Fabricius feels comfortable in since she was trained as a professional dancer and comes from a family of classically-trained musicians.

The concert experience, like all of Oh Land’s art, aims to forge a connection with the audience.

“I feel inspired by loneliness a lot—it’s one of the core themes I return to. And deep down I think it’s the reason I create,” she says with a sigh. “Music is a way to reach out to people. It’s a way to communicate your emotions so you’re not just stuck with them yourself. For me, writing a song is a longing to communicate with others.”