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#1321: Sigur Rós – Svefn-g-englar

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It’s the same story I’ve told in the posts for ‘Olsen Olsen’, and ‘Starálfur’ not too long ago. August 2018, I was feeling sad. I went into work, put on Sigur Rós’s Ágætis byrjun on Spotify, let that album play out loud on the speakers because it was a job I was the only one who was in the “office” most of the time, and found myself entranced by its beauty. Sigur Rós were a group I’d been aware of since at least 2005, when Takk… was the new album that was going to be released. The video for ‘Glósóli’ aired as an exclusive on MTV2. I had no idea what was going on in it. Then ‘Hoppípolla’ was released as a single, and its video was shown on the channel what felt like every day for a time there in 2006. I was only ten years of age, but there were a couple things I gathered from Sigur Rós then. One, their songs were in a language I did not understand. And two, the music sounded nice at least. But I wasn’t wowed enough, as much as a ten-year-old could be, to go on a Sigur Rós listening spree. I was more into Green Day or Billy Talent at the time. Going through the punk phase.

But 2018 was the time to finally check out a Sigur Rós album. I can’t remember what made me do it. I think I watched a video of the band playing ‘Olsen Olsen’ live. But I also think it was listed as the best album of 1999 on besteveralbums.com. Had a ribbon next to its rating and everything. That website had never let me down, as any avid reader of this blog may know. ‘Svefn-g-englar’ is the first proper track of Ágætis byrjun, though the sonar pinging (as I’ve come to recognise it) that happens throughout is foreshadowed in the album’s intro before it. You can’t go wrong listening to both together. ‘Svefn…’ slowly builds as it goes along. Those two notes on the organ and the sonar ping are what the entire track is hooked on. They’re joined by a deep bass note that hits you in your inner core. The drums come in. The stage is set. But nothing prepares you for that almighty swooping, whale-song noise produced by the bowed guitar playing by Jónsi. With some good speakers, the combination of it all takes you to another dimension. If you were able to hear music in the depths of an ocean, or at least if there was a documentary about sea wildlife, this would be the song to perfectly capture the scene.

And looking at a translation, it appears that song does take place in an ocean of some kind. If you were to consider the womb an ocean in a metaphorical kind of way. The narrator here is a baby waiting in the womb, all peaceful in the amniotic fluid, before being birthed and breastfed by the sleeping angels (the ‘svefn-g-englar’) of the mother and, I think, the doctors. The track follows your standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-outro kind of structure, but stretched out to over nine minutes in length, allowing the music to breathe and thrive in the expansive spaces. Damn, Jónsi’s vocal on this track. Could make a grown man cry. With his delicate high-pitch, it’s like a mother singing her baby to sleep, which I think is meant to be the obvious point of it all. The ‘Tjúúúúúúú’ chorus melody won’t leave your head, not just because of how many times it’s repeated. It’s also beautifully delivered every time. And one thing I want to point out is how there seems to be a glockenspiel or xylophone that gets introduced into the mix, which pans from the right ear to the left and work perfectly in rhythm with the sonar ping that hits right in the centre. A neat production trick that gets my eyes darting everywhere. A little aside there. I try not to describe things as ‘epic’ because I think calling things that was ran into the ground in about 2010. But this track is definitely a synonym of that. Let’s say ‘extraordinary’.

#1277: Sigur Rós – Starálfur

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I heard Sigur Rós’ 1999 album Ágætis byrjun, the second in their discography, in late August of 2018. A time when I wasn’t feeling good at all, pretty miserable, it wasn’t the greatest period personally. But the album acted as something of an aid just because of how genuinely stunning it was. There are a lot of beautiful moments throughout, expansive, majestic, astounding, while also maintaining a warmth and intimacy about it. Listened through the loudspeakers at my old workplace and was convinced enough that I went home and downloaded it on my laptop not too long after. And the album starts off strong too, with the one-two punch of ‘Svefn-g-englar’ (really the second song after the album’s intro, but it may as well be one long thing) and the featured track for today, ‘Starálfur’.

If there are potentially any musicians out there reading this, wanting to make a song with a very nice sounding string section, I would suggest using ‘Starálfur’ as the reference. The track relies heavily on these string parts, and when a guitar dares to enter the frame, it sounds like it’s being played through a tiny, tiny speaker in a moment of stillness before the strings take over again. The song’s lyrics are in Icelandic. I’ll attempt in singing along to them, but I’m sure I’m getting the pronunciation all wrong. Translated to English, the song’s title is ‘Staring Elf’, and vocalist Jónsi Birgisson sings about going to bed after a long day and suddenly seeing this supernatural creature looking right back at him. The elf takes the shape of Jónsi’s body. He’s stunned by the whole event. The song is sped up just a little bit, so Jónsi’s vocal has a boy-ish tone as a result. I think that all adds to the spectacle of it, though. Like I said, it’s in Icelandic, so it’s not like I know all of this. I’m only able to detail the story to you through this translation I found.

Sometimes ‘heavenly’ is an adjective that’s thrown around here and there, but I wouldn’t be able to find another word that would fittingly sum ‘Starálfur’ up. It’s all about those leading strings, can’t imagine anything but clouds opening to a piercing white light whenever I hear them. Or, like, those time lapse videos where a 24-hour day is shown in 30 seconds or something. Particularly during that ending section. Which is funny because the last 50 seconds of the track are these harrowing, anxiety-inducing noises of, I think, feedback that then leads into the following song on the album. ‘Starálfur’ appears again on Ágætis byrjun, slowed down to a quarter of its original speed and named ‘Avalon’ to close the album out. And for whatever reason, the band wrote that ending melody played by the violins so that it would sound the same played backwards as it did forwards. A musical palindrome, if you will. This is a magical, magical song. Very beautiful.

#972: Sigur Rós – Olsen Olsen

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August 2018 bank holiday weekend. Bit of a personal low point. Got absolutely shitfaced at Notting Hill Carnival, ended up heading to Acton in an almost vegetative state (which is the complete opposite direction of where I needed to go), somehow ordered an Uber with the remaining amount of battery on my phone, fell asleep in the front seat while my phone dropped out of my pocket, and when I woke up at the end of the journey I had no idea where it had went. For about two weeks that phone was in that Uber vehicle. I did get it back luckily, but because I thought it was long gone I had already bought a new one. I went straight back to work on the Tuesday, still feeling like absolute garbage, but luckily the office was a studio where no one really checked what you did. For a reason that I honestly can’t remember now, I decided to listen to Sigur Rós’ 1999 record, Ágætis byrjun, on Spotify. Though I didn’t have any idea what lead singer Jónsi Birgirsson was singing, the music within worked as the greatest hangover soundtrack.

The performances throughout the album sound truly expansive and enveloping in scope, and in the middle of all of them comes Jónsi’s angelic falsetto that brings a comforting tone to the proceedings. ‘Olsen Olsen’ is a prime example of this dynamic. It’s a track that slowly builds, introducing new elements as the track progresses before arriving to a almighty rousing finish. The journey to that climactic ending is well worth it though. Tempo-setting strikes on the ride cymbal are joined by the kick and snare drums. A hypnotizing bass riff then comes in, one that repeats its plucking pattern almost throughout, which is very much the melodic centerpoint of the entire composition. Jónsi and his cello-bowed guitar join the frame, though the latter doesn’t have as much of a presence here than in other songs on the album. A focus is put more on the double-tracked vocal of Jónsi, placed in the left and right channels, who sings in the gibberish language of Volenska. A shift in the melody of the bass occurs around two minutes in, lifting the track ever so slightly, until it all gives way to the introduction of a jaunty flute. Rinse and repeat that paragraph, add a triumphant piano and ‘gang’ vocals and you’ve got yourself eight minutes of some beautiful stuff. That time goes quick though, truly.

Thinking about it now, I think this track was the reason I chose to listen to Ágætis… on that day. A video of the band performing it live, from their 2006 DVD Heima, appeared on the side of another video I was watching on YouTube. It’ll be embedded below. This video had millions of views; it had to be good, surely. And it was. It’s one of those performances where I actually wasn’t sure if it was live, or just a music video where the album audio was being played over the top. It soon became clear that it was the former. Much like the audience in that video, I don’t think I did anything much but pay my full attention to it. Mostly because the music was good, but also likely because I didn’t have the energy to put anything into the work I was meant to be doing. It was a strange time made much better by the discovery of some fantastic music.