This Is Pretty Cool.

And also pretty! We like pretty.





Linked through facebook to Pitchfork for the vid.

My Lips Are Pale Blue.

So, this one may be cheating a little, but I watched it, and I'm scrambling to make up some films, so we're all just going to have to deal with it, ok? Good. Besides, I've watched so many three hours films, that I'm sure the fact that this one doesn't quite scrape through to feature length shouldn't worry anyone. Well, it doesn't worry me. And at the end of the day, I'm only cheating myself, non?

Marry me. Immediately.

Go Quiet is the film on the bonus disc of Jónsi's limited edition release of his recent solo record Go. (Everyone should know by now that Jónsi is the lead singer of Sigur Rós.) Directed by the same man behind the band's 2007 film Heima (a beautiful documentary about a series of free concerts the boys gave in Iceland as a way of giving back to the island), Dean DeBlois (who apparently also directs films about training dragons, but that's just by the by),  Go Quiet features much of the same beautiful slow motion photography creating a sense of place rather than of story. The concept behind the film is that Jónsi wakes up alone in his messed up house after hosting a New Year's Eve party and retraces the night as he performs his songs acoustically and alone.


The album, as we know, is glorious. I was a little afraid, but it is truly terrific (bolstered by the incredible live show I saw last month - it was truly something special and would rate as one of the best live gigs I've been to.) And watching the truest love of my life, my ultimate future husband, number one of my list wandering his house barefoot, picking up instruments and singing so mournfully was breathtaking. Yes, I'm horribly biased, but there you have it. Take it or leave it.


If you're not a fan, it's still a very pretty film. As a film itself, it's not too bad. The narrative intent isn't strong enough, so it plays more as simply a live DVD - not a concert per se, but someone in their living room belting out some tunes. Were it not for the photography, it kind of could have been on YouTube. Not meaning to denigrate it, but there wasn't that much more to it.


So, it's a 3.5 star film. You can get it on its own, fear not, but it's pretty in the limited edition if you can get it. Plus, the album is terrific. Worth the buy.

Go Do It Now.

So, in my can-barely-breathe anticipation of the release of Go on Monday (please dear god let me pre-order arrive that day! Or I'll die. I will just die), Jónsi is streaming the entire album through here and here - I believe the last link is UK only.


If you haven't ordered your copy yet, you should be shot, or something. You can get it at jonsi.com. Or Amazon it. Or something. I'm listening to it now and it's making me very happy. I think there are still some tickets available to his tour, which is going to be epic from the looks of all the BTS vids posted around the place - 59 Productions are doing the stage and visual design, and it looks awesome.


Interestingly, Rufus is also releasing All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu on Monday. Brilliant! Two in one day! I recently discovered that I will be seeing Rufus four times in twelve months - I saw A Not So Silent Night last December, I'm hitting up his Sadler's Wells gig in a couple of weeks (front row! Centre! Wham), then seeing him play a Kenwood House picnic in July (or June? I only discovered I had tix to this the other day... haven't written the date down. Oops), then again with his darling sister Martha at the Royal Albert Hall in November, just before I depart this fair country. Crazy, I know.


So now, here's an embed of Go Do, which we love:

I'd embed a Rufus clip, but I don't know where they are. But we do also love the sound of the tracks we have heard. The Royal 'We', obviously.

Have I...?

Have I previously stated how much I'm looking forward to Jónsi's debut solo album, Go? Have I? Maybe? Just once or twice? Well, things like this just make me look forward to it even more.

(via)

Seriously, he has a cockatoo. Brilliant. Album is out here in the UK on April 5th if my memory serves me correctly, marginally earlier in Australia and, for some reason, Germany I think. US tour dates announced but none for Europe! That's so unfair. I'm going to write him a sternly worded letter.


But really, like all of Sigur Rós' albums as a group were before they released, this is my most anticipated record of the year. I also believe he is or has been mixing it around the corner from where I live. So I'm going to put on my stalking hat.

Electricity Wires Are Down.

So, I have a throat infection, meaning I'm feeling roughly like an enormous pile of crap with a fever. So, I actually have three writeups outstanding - Husbands & Wives, Secrets & Lies and In The Loop - but I'm probably not going to get onto them until tomorrow, if I feel any better. I probably will have added another (I'm thinking Gerry) to my list by then, depending on how the night goes...

Meanwhile, I've been thinking about Boy Lilikoi (here and here), considering I've been listening to it virtually non-stop on repeat since I picked it up last week. (Seriously, I think my iTunes play count for the song is going to be somewhere up near 100 plays in, what, six days?)

I'm thinking this is probably the song with the most likelihood of being a radio-friendly hit that Jónsi's voice has ever been heard of (by me at least.) Obviously, the is the first solo outing of his, but I'm going to go with Sigur Rós as his back catalogue for the sake of actually being able to make an argument. Cool? Cool.

The last Sigur Rós release Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust from last year was easily their 'poppiest' record to date, not necessarily meaning that they were empty throwaway Britney dance tracks (not that there's anything wrong with that...), as they had a bit of a rockier and momentous feel, not only more than Britney, but more than their previous work. Yes, they retained the pretty highlights really brought to the fore in Takk... ('pretty' is the only word that I think appropriately describes this - ever since the 05 release, I've associated it with pretty), but they shortened many of the running times (with Gobbledigook clocking in at just over 3 minutes, Inní mér syngur vitleysingur coming in a minute longer, and Við spilum endalaust right in between), whereas the vast majority of their previous songs across all albums are of epic length (excluding intro tracks on Ágætis Byrjun and Takk..., and interstitial moments on a few of the albums, the only song I could see of a similarly radio-friendly play length (4 minutes) was Avalon off their second record, which could really be regarded as an extended outro anyway, especially taken within the context of the album as a whole.)

In addition to merely shortening the tracks (will I should note still feel entirely complete), the first two tracks off off Með suð (Gobbledigook and Inní mér syngur vitleysingur) have a much, much more upbeat feel to them. They both have ripping percussion tracks, repetitive song structures (like pop songs! Verse, chorus, verse!) of a sort (less so the latter track, I guess... I could argue it, but I won't) and more accessible melodic sounds in the vocals. Gone are the long drawn out vowels, replaced with shorter narrative poetry.

Boy Lilikoi, however, I think goes one step further. Yes, it is longer (though at 4.5 minutes, a more radio friendly edit could quite easily be achieved), and the orchestral arrangements are much more on show, I think, than Gobbledigook and IMSV (that one's too hard to type out each time), but there is one key difference, and it does sound a little pathetic.

That difference? It's in English. I love the sound of Sigur Rós with their use of Icelandic, a touch of English (in All Alright, with influences on the next language) and Hopelandic. I really love it. It makes the experience, for me, so much more internal. For the most part I have no idea what they're saying. I can't sing along, just make sounds that approximate what hit my eardrums. And maybe if I could understand the language I would feel differently about the pop aspect of their previous releases, as I think a major element of pop music (please note that I'm using 'pop' very broadly as 'popular' so including all manner of indie, rock, hell, metal if you want) is its ability to get stuck in your head, and that's very hard when you don't know the words. I had Paparazzi and Poker Face stuck in my head a lot in Iceland pre-Lilikoi download, and they are two of the biggest pop songs of the last twelve months, right?

The percussion behind Lilikoi is epic. It just keeps coming through, backing up every aspect of the foregrounded musical aspects. The flute (I'm sure it's not a flute, I've never been able to tell those instruments apart - someone will correct me I'm sure) recreates that prettiness I spoke of, but is backed up by the rollicking percussive movements. Jónsi combines his trademark falsetto with standard range to give us something more akin to IMSV, but... I don't know... it just feels like it could break into the mainstream, though probably on an 'indie breakthrough' scale. Not that they need the help. Without radio friendly tracks, the last two Sigur Rós records both went top 20 in Australia, and I recall hearing that Með suð was a in the top five of the European charts after release. They have an incredibly loyal following that seems to get bigger with every album (a mammoth celebrity fanbase probably doesn't hurt - Brad Pitt, anyone? Tom Cruise?) so I imagine Go, as Jónsi's debut album shall be known come release late March 2010, will have a similar initial response. The difference is, if it can break through, those already strong figures could make Jónsi individually and Sigur Rós as an entity a major player on a global scale.

This could all be wishful thinking coming from my love for the band and Jónsi. Like, serious love. They can do no wrong in my eyes. They could strangle kittens, drink their blood and turn the furs into snowshoes, and as long as they continued to make beautiful music, I'd maintain my altar to them in my house. But I think there is some, slight basis in fact here. I do. Slight.

Also, please excuse this for being rambling, overlong and probably very unclear. I have a fever. Don't like it, fuck off.

Boy Oh Boy.

I just listened to Boy Lilikoi properly for the first time and, my word, I'm excited for Go next year. Seriously. Go here, subscribe, download it, click on the letters on the website for samples of other songs.

If I could be any more in love, I now am.

Hot On The Heels...

Comes this little update from www.sigur-ros.co.uk:

jónsi’s debut solo album “go” will be released march 22nd 2010 in europe, march 23rd in usa. the album contains nine songs, most of which are sung in english, and was co-produced by jónsi, alex somers and peter katis (the national, interpol). jónsi will be embarking on an extensive world tour throughout 2010, of which more information will be annonced later.

“go” initally began as a low-key acoustic record, but, according to jónsi, “somewhere along the line it just sort of exploded”. the result is a joyful and dramatic album, featuring ecstatic string, brass and woodwind arrangements by composer nico muhly (antony & the johnsons, grizzly bear), as well as warmer, more melancholic moments.

This comes hot on the heels of his release of Riceboy Sleeps with Alex earlier this year, and amid rumour that the boys are recording for a new sigur rós album due for release next year.

How excited am I? About sixteen thousand exciteds out of ten. Check here.

When In Reykjavik...

There's something to be said for listening to a song in the country where the artist hails from. This, I think, is true of all music, but I find it particularly true of Sigur Rós.

I first came to Iceland in early July of 2006. One of the main reasons I decided to make the (at the time) very expensive addition to the end of a six month jaunt around (much cheaper) eastern Europe was because of my love for 1) Björk and 2) (probably more significantly) Sigur Rós. That would have been about a year after the release of Takk... if my memory serves me correctly.

The meaning of their music first came through for me when traveling along the south coast of Iceland in a bus over the course of a summer day (meaning about 23 hours of sunlight) from Reykjavik to a little place called Vagnsstaðir, nothing more than a hostel at the foot of a glacier just near the coast, right off the Ring Road. The trip (which did take the better part of a traditional day) carried me over lava fields, past waterfalls, alongside meadows, to rivers full of icebergs and across a virtually treeless landscape with glimpses of ice and the sun beating down the entire time. I was listening to all of Sigur Rós' albums - von, ágætis byrjun, () and takk...

Going through that landscape (which is really incredibly surreal - it is unlike anything I have ever seen, mushed together into one place) listening to that music it struck me that the music sounds how the country looks, it feels how the country feels. They are brothers in arms, they coexist peacefully but I couldn't imagine one without the other. They are the perfect complement to themselves. It is, in a word, right.

This trip has been somewhat more urban, and shorter. Ultimately here as friends from Oz are passing through, I have stuck fairly exclusively to Reykjavik, with the exception of the obligatory Blue Lagoon trip (and how fabulous that obligation is.) There is very little daylight at this time of year (only a few hours separate sunrise from sunset) so the day trips out are harder to squeeze in. Plus, I've seen a lot of it before and seeing the country is not my primary purpose - it is seeing these specific people, an important distinction to make. I have found myself listening again to their earlier albums, but of course they have also since released með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, something I feel is quite a departure from the majority of their back catalogue, especially within tracks such as gobbledigook and inní mér syngur vitleysingur. It is entirely more upbeat and lighthearted for the most part (not that I would classify their earlier recordings as at all depressing or down, simply that the latest leans more into a category that could be defined 'pop') and I think it fits better this urban setting that I have been in for these last few days. It lifts pervasive darkness and removes you from what could otherwise be a very cold, depressing existence. Last night, whilst standing by the water's edge in a freezing cold wind at midnight, the tinny sounds of the first two tracks of their latest record blaring from a friends iPhone got us all dancing around and singing, despite the stinging feeling in my fingers and growing numbness of my face.

Iceland is, to me, this band, and this band is Iceland. My only true regret is that I have not yet managed to find Jónsi and put him in my bag to take him home as my ultimate future husband.