Staff Editor on January 24th, 2020

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Danish singer-songwriter Agnes Obel created her new album in the isolation of her Berlin home studio. Hence, its name: “Myopia,” due out Feb. 21. “The albums I’ve worked on have all required that I build a bubble of some kind in which everything becomes about the album,” she said in introducing it late last year.

Like her previous three albums over the past decade, it figures to be a work of relative quietude and ethereal beauty, both of which were on display Thursday night at the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. At least, when she and her backing band were performing.

The sold-out show to a seated audience — she’ll reprise it tonight at another sold-out affair at the Masonic Lodge — featured 90 minutes of subdued voice, keyboard and strings. In contrast, her audience of devotees exploded with relatively deafening applause between songs. And the high-ceilinged room in the 93-year-old Masonic Lodge proved the perfect setting.

The crowd was treated to a host of songs from “Myopia,” including the two singles released so far, “Broken Sleep” and “Island of Doom.” Obel made little in the way of banter during the evening, but some favorites from her catalog (including “Dorian,” “The Curse” and “Trojan Horses”) seemed to speak volumes.

Photos by Dana Lynn Pleasant