And by the album’s end, you’ll realize that little voice is totally correct.īut you’ll also realize that you simply don’t care. And maybe that little voice will be saying that Sigur Rós is just ripping off bands like Spiritualized and Godspeed You Black Emperor!, and that what you’re listening to is really no more than a lot of psych-rock wankery.
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And just when you’re shaking your head at that beauty, a wall of sound crashes down around you like the waves of an arctic ocean, both deadly and beautiful in its savagery.Īnd you might shake your head and feel that it was all calculated to make you go “ooh” and “aah”, and maybe, somewhere deep inside, a little voice will be saying that it’s too much, that they’re trying too hard to be atmospheric and dreamy.
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You’ll know it when Jonsi’s vocals break through the stratosphere until he’s wailing in the distance like a soul lost at sea, asking you to join him on the other side. You can hear it in the way their music builds and crests. But if one believes that the arts allows us to tap into a Divine spark of creation, than Sigur Rós sounds like they have a direct pipeline to that fire. They could be singing about eating toast and reading the morning paper for all I know. I don’t know what they’re singing about (the band sings in a mixture of Icelandic and the band’s own language, “Hopelandic”). I don’t know Sigur Rós’ religious affiliation, if any. Sigur Rós’ music is the perfect example of this. That is to say that art, by it’s very beauty and artistic nature, points to God. I’ve always liked the concept of the “spirituality of aesthetics”. The only answer is that music like this is not planned. Each of these songs nearly bursts at the seams, overflowing with string arrangements, lush piano melodies, waves of feedback and electronics, and Jonsi’s utterly inhuman and inexplicably gorgeous vocals. How did a group of friends ever sit down and plan to write songs as moving and powerful as “Starálfur” or “Vidrar Vel Til Loftárása”? Songs like these belong in movies at those pivotal scenes when someone has a religious experience, when long-lost lovers are finally reunited, or when someone is brought back from the brink of death. I wonder how these songs began in the minds of these Icelandic lads. But even in that frigid, barren icestorm is a beauty. But elsewhere, the album is whipped with frigid electronic winds and shrieks, like the Icelandic winter coming down hard with a vengeance. “Svefn-G-Englar” begins the album off with sonar pings and a gentle organ melody, and then, a wave of sound floods the entire song as the guitar lets loose a barrage of noise so beautiful it’d break Kevin Shields’ heart. To label Ágætis byrjun, the sophomore album by the Icelandic quartet, as merely good worse, if you prefer the alternate translation An Alright Startfeels like the grandest understatement in the history of modern music.In advance of the album’s release, frontperson and. One minute, the listener is enveloped by soaring strings and angelic vocals. Sigur Rós should face some kind of lawsuit for false advertising that blatant. But the music is often as fragile and delicate as a snowflake. And one experiences both extremes while listening to Ágætis Byrjun.Īs beautiful as Ágætis Byrjun might be, it is a foreboding beauty. The former portrays Iceland as a haunting land of childhood and nostalgia, the latter as a barren, frigid landscape populated with ghosts and restless ancestors.
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The only view of Iceland I’ve ever received is through the films of Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, such as Children of Nature and Cold Fever. Ágætis byrjun / 3.Much has been made of Sigur Rós’ music and how it reflects the landscape and climate of their native Iceland. Viðrar vel til loftárásaĭisc 2 - Side B 1. Originally released on Fat-Cat & Smekkleysa this repress see’s the album being released on the bands own record label Krunk.ĭisc 1 - Side A 1. The out of print vinyl record comes packaged on 2 x 12-inch heavyweight vinyl to the exact original packaging spec. Ágætis byrjun’ was recorded by the band with producer Ken Thomas in 1999 at their Sundlaugin studio in the Icelandic countryside. Tracks from the album have been synched in several notable films such as Vanilla Sky and The Life Aquatic and the album was placed number 2 on the Pitchfork albums of the year 2000. Their break-through album that propelled them to international fame winning numerous awards and selling over a million records. ‘Ágætis byrjun’ is the critically acclaimed second album by Icelandic band Sigur Rós.