Albums
< Sigur Rose
Hvarf/Heim
words by Stuart Stubbs
It sounds ludicrous, pompous, patronising and almost nationalistic, but Sigur Ros astound partly because they don’t sing in the English language. And yet it is largely due to the wire thin, ether-floating, Icelandic vocals of Jón Þór (Jónsi) Birgisson that all of their material to date has sounded so otherworldly. Along with carefully crafted cotton-wool-soft string arrangements, it’s why they’re my favourite band to listen to on aeroplanes, suspended in between time zones, hanging between the real world and the heavens. It’s also why the band was recently awarded the Q Award for Innovation In Sound. ‘Hvarf/Heim’ supports such an accolade (and travelling soundtrack tip) by being a dual disc release of old material. But this isn’t a best of. Disc one is a cluster of early compositions, finally put to tape, and reinterpreted tracks from the band’s limited debut album, while disc 2 sees Sigur Ros acoustic and unplugged for the first time. The fact that ‘Hvarf/Helm’ accompanies a band-produced film, ‘Helma’, is almost as moot as the fact that most can’t speak Icelandic. It’s Sigur Ros as we know them and always want them to sound – magical.
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