Sigur Ros: Valtari (EI)

 |   |  1 min read

Sigur Ros: Varuo
Sigur Ros: Valtari (EI)

It has been some little while -- about four years -- since Sigur Ros last delivered a new album of their glacially epic sound, which for many had become beautifully executed and hypnotic but rather interchangeable. So you wonder what they might come back with.

Last year they seemed to have put a punctation point on the first phase of their career with the live album/DVD Inni

Their singer Jonsi had also offered a sophisticated if rather Teflon "pop" album (he also did the to soundtrack to We Bought a Zoo) so perhaps we might have expected a kind of "hope you like our new direction" album.

But no.

Sigur Ros return with the winning formula intact if erring a little more to the ambient rather than the consistent sky-scaling grandeur of their earlier work. This all sheets of voices -- arranged like a cathedral choir in God's waiting room on the soundtrack-like Dauologn -- and equally planar keyboard swathes designed with operatic sweep and which move from sometimes unsettling intimacy to the sweeping you up on the wings of angels.

There is always an undeniable and indefinable beauty about Sigur Ros, and here there are hints that new reference points might be the German group Popol Vuh (the wispery title track) as much as the canvas of their own design.

Interestingly the track Ekki Mukk - which sounds rather grubby -- is "translated" on the You Tube clip below as to mean "moving art", which is pretty much what this album is.

In slo-mo for the most part as on the lovely an understated closer Fjogur Piano . . . except when those angel wings take you higher and higher into swirling masses of clouds on the exceptional Varuo.

Business as usual in some ways, but not exactly the usual business in the world of contemporary music. 

Like the sound of this? Then check out this.

Share It

Your Comments

Freddy Reddy - Jun 10, 2012

I have Heina DVD by Sigur Ros. Took me a while to get into but there have been moments of joy with this sound, most unusual.

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Vera Ellen: It's Your Birthday (Flying Nun/bandcamp)

Vera Ellen: It's Your Birthday (Flying Nun/bandcamp)

Drawing a line from the first Velvet Underground album and a bit of Patti Smith's poetics and drama, on through Eighties garage-band post-punk to melodic indie.rock, this enjoyably ragged,... > Read more

Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True, Deluxe Edition (Universal)

Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True, Deluxe Edition (Universal)

Elvis had a fair run here on Elsewhere when the recent reissue of his first 11 albums prompted a consideration of his quite remarkable career (see tag). But this Deluxe double disc edition of... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

STRAVINSKY; ONCE, AT A BORDER, a doco by TONY PALMER (Voiceprint DVD)

STRAVINSKY; ONCE, AT A BORDER, a doco by TONY PALMER (Voiceprint DVD)

When Tony Palmer made this acclaimed and insightful documentary about Igor Stravinsky on the 100th anniversary of the composer's birth, the great man had been dead less than a decade. As with... > Read more

Richard X Bennett, Matt Parker: Parker Plays X (BYNK/digital outlets)

Richard X Bennett, Matt Parker: Parker Plays X (BYNK/digital outlets)

When Brooklyn-based composer and keyboard player Richard X Bennett contacted Elsewhere almost a decade ago we were immediately curious, his New York City Swara album was inspired by his immersion... > Read more