Valtari - Sigur Ros

Valtari

Sigur Ros

XL Records.

SCQ Rating: 73%

There are hundreds of go-to words that seek to magnify Sigur Ros’ transcendent allure – among them “glacial”, “earth-shaking”, “ethereal”, etc. – and most fans acknowledge them for lack of a clearer way of articulating such a singular sound. “Nice” shouldn’t be one of those descriptors but Valtari, the band’s fifth studio full-length, doesn’t offer a surplus of alternate doorways by which we might offer in-depth commentary.

As what can be loosely considered Sigur Ros’ “choral” album, Valtari does deviate from the life-affirming bombast that dominated Takk… and half of með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust. But these eight songs don’t play out any progressive intentions, instead retracing the Hopelandic ambience they pioneered on ( ) with their symphonic habits still calling the shots. Far from minimal, the results dial up the distilled beauty of Jonsi + Alex’s Riceboy Sleeps through the full band’s sensitive approach. Given how successfully Sigur Ros have built evocative, full-length spanning sound-environments in the past, Valtari nevertheless comes off as unsure of itself, hiding a handful of lovely, true-to-form compositions within a transient cloud of lavish indecision.

With highlights dominating the first half and the final three tracks forming a delicate instrumental suite, Valtari resembles a super-generous EP (in the tradition of Hvarf/Heim or their various maxi-singles) moreso than a self-sustaining album. However one chooses to view or describe Valtari, it finds Sigur Ros quietly thriving off their own laurels, unbothered by the boundaries they’re dwelling in. For a band that has spent half a decade leveling post-rock, they’ve earned the right to play nice.

39. Takk… - Sigur Ros (2005)

What did Takk… accomplish if not delivering on the promise put forth by Agaetis Byrjun? Just when fans and critics had forgave Sigur Ros’ for shunning their orchestral urges (with the stirring sterility of ( )’s waiting room, and again with warmer experimentation on Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do), Takk… launches with enough firepower to not only bring the Icelandic four-piece full circle creatively, but to trademark their own piece in the post-rock pie. In fact, there might be a tad too much firepower, as this third full-length tallies an inordinate amount of massive climaxes (I stand by my early assessment that the ten-minute ‘Milano’ needn’t have been included), but that’s just me taking Sigur Ros for granted again. After all, it takes a transcendent band to turn new tricks from post-rock’s old-hat dynamics and, for all their imitators, there isn’t a single other band in the world like these guys.

22. Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do – Sigur Ros (2004)

As their last album, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, seemed to resign Sigur Ros to what we expected of them – that being purveyors of grandiose, symphonic post-rock – it makes under-the-rug releases like Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do that much more interesting. Even without the Icelandic group’s slow plateau, this EP of songs composed for Merce Cunningham’s Split Sides rivals their best full-lengths. However experimental and unfurling, the melodies at work throughout these twenty-minutes ebb and flow, sympathize and dominate in turn, as Sigur Ros’ best ambient work to date.

1. Agaetis Byrjun - Sigur Ros, 1999 (Best of the 90s)

Agaetis Byrjun

Sigur Ros
Fat-Cat Records.

I had spent the winter of 2002 with ( ), holed up in my student bedroom and embracing its sterile stillness compounded by some of the worst London icestorms in recent memory. When April exams finished up, my roommates and I all emigrated back to our hometowns where manual labour and the hopeless claws of high school clung true and tight. That’s where I first heard Agaetis Byrjun; in my buddy’s parent’s car, weaving under the humid streetlights of our childhood streets at 3am, and the impression - that I’d heard one of the finest albums ever – is resoundingly confirmed today.

What seemed ultimately shocking about Agaetis Byrjun was how full of life it sounded in contrast to ( ), as if the Icelandic four-piece had blossomed into Spring after what could only be felt as an emotional ice-age. When they aren’t laying down their cinematic, slow-core framework with the warm organs of ‘Flugufrelsarinn’ or classical piano ambitions of ‘Vidrar Vel Til Loftarasa’, Sigur Ros startle with the mounting tension and full-brass attack of ‘Ny Batteri’. With the benefit of hindsight, one can hear in Agaetis Byrjun the foreshadowing of every Sigur full-length that followed; the muted shifts of ( ) in ‘Avalon’, the parading orchestral enthusiasm of Takk… in ‘Staralfur’ and the acoustic trepidation of the title track which flourished on Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust. Speaking from the time period, however, each of these compositions seemed woven from but one finely stitched imagination, completely alien from any musical sphere known to man.

Often I’ve wondered whether the inverted (and thusly chronological) shock of hearing Agaetis Byrjun first would’ve bested the course I stumbled upon, but it hardly matters. Funny thing is, there’s nothing about my love for Agaetis Byrjun that boils down to sweet nostalgia. While I might look back upon that summer of discovery with a slight smirk, I remember – between my awful 4am workdays and general restlessness - how unpleasant those months were. This record hardly needs a memory-crutch as it remains a document of uncompromised beauty, wonder and originality; one capable of casting a positive light on just about everything and anyone. Yes, this is a technicality since the record was only available domestically in Iceland until 2001, but if there was one record ready to take us into the new millennium, it’s Agaetis Byrjun.

( ) - Sigur Ros (Winter Albums)

( )

Sigur Ros
Fat Cat Records.

SCQ Rating: 88%

Picasso’s Blue Period, as far as I’m aware, was never meant to be interpreted beyond its aesthetic. Its signature - that the artist discovered and explored his allure to monochromatic contrasts – wasn’t nearly as durable as its name, which has been re-appropriated and reinterpreted countless times under emotional guises. Many artists since have explained their crafts as having been born from an affecting “blue period”, noting that personal conflicts (a break-up, addiction, death, etc.) became imbedded to their professional work. ( ), Sigur Ros’ follow-up to the much-heralded Agaetis Byrjun, is truly the Blue Period of my generation; a recording that deals in melancholic shifts as strictly as it abides by its monochromatic aesthetic.

The drastic divides between ( ) and the band’s previous output has been both drooled over exhaustively and, well, super-obvious, so I’ll sum it up quickly: the band tore apart its awe-inspired orchestral sound, Jonsi Birgisson embraced an imaginary language, songs were refused titles, and the resulting album was titled with punctuation. Oh, and their drummer was replaced, as if disoriented fans had a chance to notice. Interesting how all these innovations which make for such curious fanboy banter accumulate to make ( ), a record that is at once their most shockingly original full-length as well as a virtual blank canvas for listeners. So richly detailed one could spend a year disassembling its layers (for example, max out your stereo speakers and start ‘Untitled 2’ to hear this record’s ghosts being reborn), yet so sparsely designed as to comply with most modern ambient templates, ( ) is truly an elusive masterwork. Although most every track moves at a funereal pace, and although the nine minute dirge of ‘Untitled 6’ glides effortlessly into the nihilistic thirteen minute ‘Untitled 7’, ( ) overcomes its purposeful sterility with a ton of heart. ‘Untitled 1’ breaks its crest over waves of wrenching vocals and ‘Untitled 3’ dances over a starry piano coda, but it’s ‘Untitled 8’ that deems this album a classic; an easy acoustic refrain that morphs into an aggressive behemoth, detonating every careful nuance that came before it. After ( )’s second half lulled us into no man’s land, ‘Untitled 8’ is a perfectly timed explosion to remind us how thrilling Sigur Ros are.

The believed intent of performing all of ( )’s lyrics in Hopelandic was so each listener could interpret them personally and write them along the blank liner notes. Whether that’s fact or wishful thinking, I strongly stand by the theory. A record this oblique can undoubtedly mean something – no matter how varied or far-reaching – to anyone who gives it a chance. For me it was in a closet-sized student house in the winter of 2002; trying desperately to outgrow my adolescence. I never took to writing lyric interpretations through my CD liner notes although even now, listening to Jonsi’s hollow phrasing six years later, I remember old sensations - like phonetic memories - provoked and sculpted from his every word. It technically means nothing, yet somehow in that verbal vacuum it comes to mean everything we attached to it; a Blue Period we fans shared with the band responsible. Meanwhile, how Picasso’s Rose Period escaped all this reinterpretation is beyond me...

Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust - Sigur Ros

Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust

Sigur Ros
XL Records.

SCQ Rating: 83%

Last year's Heim/Hvarf collection, plus the accompanying release of Sigur Ros' first live document, Heima, found Sigur Ros where many bands are who issue stop-gap material: at a considerable crossroads. Although the icelandic troupe have never faltered since the breakthrough of Agaetis Byrjun in 1999 (nearly ten years now!!), Takk... was a clear climax, featuring enough cathartic releases of harmony and drama to exhaust even their most faithful followers. Epic, gorgeous and immensely satisfying as Takk... was, it still begged the question: what can they do after this? Really, what route can they take without releasing Takk II? And as breathtaking as Heim/Hvarf is, it's a double-edged reminder of how tired post-rock is as often as how brilliant Sigur Ros are. Being the flagship band for its genre, was it possible that Sigur Ros had outgrown post-rock?

Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust (translated roughly as With a Buzz in Our Ear, We Play Endlessly) doesn't go so far as to answer that question, although first single 'Gobbledigook' made a decent, first-single bid to overhaul the Sigur Ros sound with its tribal rhythms and raw acoustics. It's a perfect example of a band completely changing while maintaining the very best of their crafts; Sigur Ros make you believe they could rival Animal Collective in the freak-folk department any day of the week. So what happens after that? Well, we get alot of great songs, some of which employing a similar use of spontaneity, but in all, a record that isn't so far removed from its older siblings. This, like those before it, is a Sigur Ros record in nearly every respect: ecstatic, feel-good rushes of cacophony, densely moving ambient ballads, great production, better songwriting, and the occasional track that goes nowhere realllly slowly. 'Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur' is probably the sixty-seventh great reason to listen to Sigur Ros when falling in love, all slapped piano chords and arena-worthy hand-claps, while 'Ára bátur' evokes a sorrow I expected the band incapable of by this point, pushed to excellence by Jonsi's incredible coos.

The only clear distinguisher between this and the earlier Sigur Ros discography is how unbalanced it can feel, as if they're divided about whether to step boldly into a second 'Goobledigook'-inflected phase, or continue to peddle their brand of classical post-rock (a template that, for the record, shows no sign of wearing thin). The tempo of their more driven material is quicker here, the tempo of their reflective material even slower; it can be difficult trying to find your footing when Sigur Ros are usually so cautious with their sequencing.

Although many of my questions stated above remain unanswered, I have no doubts that Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust is wonderful, the kind of record that I feel, a month on, I'm still cracking the surface of. Sigur Ros constantly have their work cut out for them because they've so rarely faltered, but if With a Buzz in Our Ear, We Play Endlessly does eventually edge out Takk... as the better album, I wager its secret will lie in songs like 'Íllgresi' and 'Fljótavík': songs that sum up Sigur Ros' sound - as lame as it will read, the sound that reminds us how beautiful it is to be alive - but without the long-winded meandering or overdone climaxes that post-rock has clung to and Sigur Ros has evaded criticism over. Takk... reveled in those habits, and if Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaus does end up just another classic Sigur Ros record, these moments will be its small victory.

4) Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do - Sigur Ros (Top Extended Plays)

Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do

Sigur Ros
Fatcat Records

SCQ Rating: 90%

I don’t think there’s an EP that can compare with the rush of memories I recall when listening to Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do. It’s indescribable and frustratingly so; I cannot pinpoint how these three lyric-less pieces can bring each of my senses back to the Spring of 2004, when Sigur Ros quietly dropped this oddity into stores. Besides being the perfect season to blind-side Sigur fans with ambient codas of piano, synth, and music-box, each of these tracks act as a web, stitching the threads of old memories and leaving the listener with a 20 minute whirlwind memento.

This recording is also special because it shows an impeccable band working at their most experimental. While these pieces were written for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 2003, I can’t imagine many fans of this EP wanting to trade in their personal interpretation to see how the music was actually used.