Tag Archive: Sigur Ros


Burial tunes for a broken world

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February 10, 2020

BURIAL – Tunes 2011-2019 (Hyperdub, 2019)
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“The world is falling to pieces, but some of the pieces taste good”. So wrote Adrian Mitchell in his poem ‘Peace Is Milk’, first published in his ‘Out Loud’ collection in 1968.

This remains an accurate statement even though the world is a very different place from half a century ago. Technology and technocracy have made even digital natives long for an analog age they have no direct experience of.

Allied to this is an entrenched pessimism towards the shapes of things to come. By and large, the consensus among Science Fiction writers and filmmakers is that there is little to gain from imagining what the future will be like when the present is already dystopic enough. 1984 has been and gone and the Brave New World is here and now. The plots of Black Mirror are no fiction. As William Gibson, the creator of Neuromancer, noted “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” Continue reading →

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Meeting Sigur Rós – impressions of Reykjavík

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August 9, 2016
Harpa

The shadows and light in Harpa concert hall are stunning.

Preparations and expectations are as much a part of journeys as arrivals but it was a trial to face mundane considerations of what to pack for my short stay in Reykjavík.

Most bloggers, tweeters and travel guides recommend winter wear even when traveling in the summer months. They are not wrong. At this time of year it is light all day but this does not mean there is constant sunshine.

Temperatures rarely exceed 23◦ C and are often much lower. The evenings are cool and it also rains a lot so waterproof clothing is considered essential. Dressing as you would for a typical Autumnal day in Northern England is a good rule of thumb guide. While I was there the temperature was a little chilly at an average of around 17◦ C  (I needed a hat!) but the air feels so good and pure.

Soon after arriving, I experienced a prime example of the pragmatism of the Icelandic people when I asked a tour guide if I needed rainproof clothing for a day excursion to The Golden Circle. She replied: “If it rains, yes!”

Town

A birds-eye view of Reykjavik

I can’t remember exactly when I began to get obsessed about the idea of going to Iceland but the wealth of amazing music coming from this small country was certainly a major factor. For this reason I has to pinch myself when the co-owner of the apartment I had booked turned out to be named Sigurrós. This is akin to a foreigner visiting Liverpool for the first time and being greeted by a John Lennon.

In just three full days I could only get a fleeting impression of the city. My sole out-of-town experience was confined to a memorable eight-hour excursion (with commentary in English & Scandinavian) to Geysir hot springs, the Gulfoss waterfall and the National Park (the Golden Circle).

Still, I’m happy to say that my spectacles remain as resolutely rose-tinted as they were before my trip. I’d love to return with more time and money to explore the whole island.

So, without further ado, here are some of my impressions :

The Icelanders.
The people are universally kind, friendly and nice. I saw an middle-aged man looking for a CD of local music being helped by a young female shop assistant who patiently explained what Indie music is without a trace of condescension. Continue reading →

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RAVENNA TRANSMISSIONS FESTIVAL VII – DAY 2

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March 22, 2014

TRANSMISSIONSVII_poster70x100_aggiornatoIn 1999, David Byrne wrote an article for the New York Times provocatively entitled I Hate World Music . It isn’t the music itself that the ex-Talking Head hates but the media label that lumps everything which is not English-language pop/rock into the same category.

He wrote that “the use of the term world music is a way of dismissing artists or their music as irrelevant to one’s own life. It’s a way of relegating this “thing” into the realm of something exotic and therefore cute, weird but safe, because exotica is beautiful but irrelevant; they are, by definition, not like us”.

Byrne noted that by virtue of record sales alone some artists escaped such lazy pigeon-holing. No one refers to Ricky Martin or Sigur Ròs as world music artists even though most of their best known songs are sung in Spanish or Icelandic (or Hopelandic!) respectively.

Instead, this genre name is reserved  for the kind of artists who festival curators Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost (aka A Hawk And A Hacksaw) assembled for a unique concert at Ravenna last night. The performers flown in from Balkan countries are the kind that have most western listeners (myself included) automatically reaching for glib adjectives like ‘authentic’, ‘traditional’ and ‘exotic’. Continue reading →

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A HEADACHE IN THE HEART

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December 1, 2013

ANGELS OF THE UNIVERSE (Englar alheimsins) directed by Friðrik Þór Friðriksson (Iceland, 2000)

Life for Páil (Ingvar E. Sigurðsson) is fine and dandy at first. He has a nice girlfriend named Dagny and spends his free time painting, drumming and writing poems.

Big colourful post-impressionist canvases at his home signify he’s a young man with a vivid imagination.

When Dagny’s mom discovers the lovers in bed, she seems as perturbed by Páil’s humble background (his dad is a cabbie) as by the fact that he is sneakily screwing her daughter. This results in a sudden end of their fledgling relationship. Dagny says she’s still fond of Páil but stands him up on a date and thereafter his life goes into free fall.

He begins by pacing up and down in a frenzied manner; then things go from bad to worse. He goes to the doctor who diagnoses his migraines as “a headache of the heart” for which there is no medical cure. Páil complains of the invisible, unbreachable wall between him and the real world.

All this could be happening anywhere in the world until one character suggests that schizophrenia is a condition of the Icelandic character – the emotional equivalent of trying to balance fire and ice. Apart from this, there is no real context for Páil’s descent into madness which meant that I couldn’t muster much sympathy for his plight.

His parents can’t cope with his aggressive mood swings and he becomes an inmate of Kleppur mental institute. Medication dulls his brain but cannot calm the torment in his soul. Fellow inmates include a Hitler apologist and a songwriter who claims to have written all the Beatles songs.

There are some lighter moments but mostly the story (based on Einar Már Guðmundsson‘s novel)  is fairly bleak with no hopeful denouement. You can take solace only from the fact that music from Sigur Rós plays over the final scene and closing credits.

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THE LAST FARM

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September 9, 2013

The Last Farm (Síðasti bærinn)  is a bleak but touching  20 minute Icelandic film directed by Rúnar Rúnarsson and starring Jón Sigurbjörnsson with a soundtrack by  Kjartan Sveinsson, former member of Sigur Rós..

It was nominated for an Academy Award for Live Action Short Film in 2006 and raises questions not just about how we live but how we choose to end our days .

An old farmer is preparing for Winter near his remote home. He gets a phone call to say his daughter is to visit. There is talk of him and his wife being relocated to a retirement home.

He has other plans …..

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