Totally Shuffled- Sigur Ros

extracted from "Totally Shuffled-A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod" 

Sigur Rós- Góðan daginn- Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

The sound of melting glaciers. Windswept vistas and landscapes that look like the surface of Mars. Slow motion films of lava flows and bubbling volcanoes. Empty skies and isolated, brightly painted houses adrift within seas of grey fields. Odd stunted trees poking through rocky ground, fighting the elements. Natural history programmes on the TV. All these clichés when I listen to Sigur Ros-I can’t get away from it.

Sigur Ros kind of passed me by for a few years. I must have taken my finger off the pulse for a bit. I thought for some strange reason that they were a bit of a Sugarcubes-type-Bjork-lite-Icelandic-twiddly-mish mash. Not for any particular reason, just a perception. It was only when someone told me that they were actually pretty good and worth giving a go that I got hold of the ( ) album just after it was released.(I actually bought it-probably one of the last CDs that I did go out and buy.)

At about the same time, and in a weird sort of happenstance, I flicked through BBC2 late one night and saw them performing live in a TV studio somewhere. It wasn’t the Jools Holland programme as I avoid that like the plague-it was probably some arts show on after Newsnight. However, they not only sounded intriguing but looked it too. It wasn’t rock at all and it wasn’t twiddly bollocks either.

So I listened to ( ) and it was much better than I expected. It was, and is, so hard to describe without falling into clichés. It’s easier to talk about what Sigur Ros mean and how I feel when I hear them.

What do I like about them? Why has my blinkered perception changed?

I don’t know what genre they fall into, what pigeonhole they could be placed in. They are just Sigur Ros, making Sigur Ros music. It’s not rock music and I cannot see easily where there influences are from. They could only come from Europe-if any music is non-American, then this is it. But Iceland is not really part of Europe, and like Sigur Ros, they are just “outside”.

Hopelandlic. The English translation of the Iceland word Vonlenska. The non-literal language,without syntax and sometimes without grammar, that they use in some songs and in all of  ( ). It sounds daft but makes sense.For Sigur Ros.

Despite the complete overuse of Sigur Ros tracks as background music for TV programmes-I swear I heard a track off Takk being used in the X- Factor- they haven’t become Radio 2 fodder.

The Icelandic economic crash. Sigur Ros still are going despite everything. They are due to release a new album sometime in 2012 so by the time I have finished this we’ll know if it heralded a radical change in direction.

The album that this track is from. Translated, the title is, "With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly" Sigur Ros have a sense of humour.

( ) has eight tracks. They are all called ( ). But they all sound different.


"Totally Shuffled":
Kindle book here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Music-Broken-ebook/dp/B00CJYZ3CA 
Paperback:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Broken-iPod-The/dp/149495687X