Sigur Rós
 

Saw them supporting Radiohead a couple of years ago. A little too like The Boo Radleys for my tastes.

My nephew gave me a bootleg Sigur Rós CD after I mentioned I had liked them from the Vanilla Sky soundtrack, but I never actually got around to listening to it and he confiscated it. Then I saw a recent Television Thing which included live performances of Vespertine with Bjork and the Bulgarian Women's Choir (amazingly excellent) and a live Sigur Rós set and immediately went out and bought their newest unpronouncable album, Ágætis Byrjun. The warmth and unpretentious realness of this album left me spellbound and the CD playerbound for a week.

I personally think they are the most exciting young band in a long time, and am violently addicted, especially to the song svefn-g-englar.

Homework assignment:

Step one:
Download and listen to (at least) the following tracks:

2. svefn-g-englar [10:04]

7. viðrar vel til loftárása [10:18 ]

9. ágætis byrjun [7:56 mins]

Step Two:
Write a full report on explicitly how much and why you loved it. Feel free to be witty, clever or otherwise creative.

Step Three:
If you don't like it, and I find out about it, you will be banned, so shut up.


hehehe

ban me now

GRRRR!
 

http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/mp3/svefn-clip.mp3

I'll be pissed if I get an F on my homework!

fukkin teachers! :f:

I like 'em...they sound like Radiohead on CrAcK :AY:

hmmmm
 

Re: GRRRR!
 

you got an E for effort: :BB:

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Please refer to the setup and troubleshooting guides.


Back to www.sigur-ros.co.uk homepage


Document: /mp3/svefn-clip.mp3
Time: Tuesday, 19-Nov-02 21:18:56 GMT
Remote host: 208.23.220.121

Woah, I LOVE Sigur Rós! I remember back in 2001 a friend introduced this band to me and suggested that I hear "Staralfur" which needless to say, totally captured me and made me a fan of their music. They've been touring a lot in the UK and my friends who were lucky enough to catch their gigs, all gave this band high reviews. Actually, they just finished up on a US tour but as luck would have it, they didn't play anywhere around me...figures! *arf*
Emmy



P.S. what do you think of 'Staralfur?' Isn't it simply beautiful?

I have to admit that I'm converted. I just downloaded "svefn-g-englar" and it is beautiful. It's funny though, I saw them in November 2000 and was totally un-interested in them and as a consequence paid absolutely no attention to what they were playing and went off to get a pint. However, on hearing the chorus I immediately recognised the song. Funny how things stick without you knowing or intending it. Makes you wonder about the brains capacity for holding un-countable numbers of small experiences from your life.

Does anyone know of a link where to dl their new cd? pm me...

I picked up Von the other day thinking it was a new release. (there's nothing legible printed on it as usual, including a date.) My exact thought on the initial listen was that a band this young and in the pressurized bubble of cult status could exhibit this much freedom gives me hope for the future of music.

The first ten minute track, Sigur Ros, is somewhere between a soundtrack for a horror film and the sound that just about any group of musicians will make after smoking opium for three days straight in total darkness. I frankly doubt that many of you reading this would care for the work, but I strongly admire this kind of rare organic truth in bands that have "made it"--the overwhelming tendency being rather generally to listen to the suits who are chanting "give us something with a beat and hook, you know, like Svefn-G-Englar" and most bands it seems are docile enough to follow through, lamely repeating variations on some frozen spark of an idea.

Well, of course now I realize I was wrong. Von was Sigur's first release, originally printed in an edition of 500 copies, and eventually selling about 500,000 copies in Iceland, (a goodly number on the island I'd reckon). Von was released here in the states about 3 months ago and a single copy just made it to my local store. (can you tell I don't spend much time p2ping these days?)

On subsequent listens I began to discern that some of the highly strange production values are in fact probably a result of a low budget. All the more beautiful and rare to my ears.

At any rate, rather than feeling dumb, my original observation was simply compounded: it's almost inconceivable that a band this young can display this much originality--an originality oddly steeped in tradition, for while it reminds me of absolutely nothing that's gone before it (other than jamming in total darkness after a three day opium binge that is), one could, if one wished, draw a straight line between early Pink Floyd and Sigur Ros that would traverse more than three almost completely forgotten decades. (Though they look like 14 year olds to your elderly narrator, I assume they are old souls. Come to think of it, Iceland may be transmigrationally reserved for old souls.) And with three albums and a number of EPs under their belt, I'd say if this band realizes their potential for several more decades they will in fact subtly bend the course of music back toward the human every bit as much as the Floyd did. I will await their Dark Side of the Moon.

Download the whole album and save it for a relaxed, attentive moment when you don't need to have your all your conventional musical buttons jammed down at once for three minutes at a time. Opium optional.

:tu:

/\ that's going right in this week's wir mr. stone.

- js.