I must confess to not yet having had the patience to sit and enjoy a whole sigur rós album, despite everybody else's intentions to wet themselves with excitement over them. I remember at first even being slightly bothered by the falsetto voice described by someone as "gently licking everyone's ears like a warm and drooly puppy", but mostly I've never found peace and quiet for long enough to just try to sit back and truly listen to their albums. However I've found time to be enthralled by their excellent videos, and it is this experience which I would now like to impart on all of you, regardless of wether you like their music or not. The videos are truly amazing, to say the least, all of them in slow motion of course, like the music.
"Svefn-g-englar" features a cast of amazing actors all of whom have Downs Syndrome. They have formed an acting troupe called "Perlan", and apparently perform regularily though I can't find anything about them online except in relations to this video, and they're amazing to watch in this video.
Another video is "Viðrar vel til Loftárása", which literally means "Nice Weather for an Air-raid", the title of which is taken from a comment from a weather reporter who, during the war in Kosovo remarked that this was nice weather for an air-raid, meaning sunny I presume. Neither the song nor the video is about war or weather though, but has raised a few eyebrows and caused some heated arguments even.
The latest video featured here is "Glósóli" which is on their latest album, "Takk". I have no idea what it's about, but Glósóli means something like "Glowing Sunshine", but put together to sound like a person's name. I can't find anyone by that name though, at first glance.
Funnily enough today when I logged into my computer there was this web page open, where you can buy tickets to sigur rós' concert in Reykjavik on 27th november. I thought to myself, "well, my girlfriend must have been thinking of buying tickets", and left the web page open, in case she needed it again to place an order. Then tonight we were discussing this possibility and it turns out she also noticed this web page open, thought I was going to buy tickets, and left it open for me in case I needed it. Since there's no-one else in our household who could possibly be interested in tickets to a sigur rós show, it must be our destiny to go there, and eventually we bought the tickets, but I must presume some elves opened the web page for us to discover.
sigur rós - Glósóli video (web page with embedded .mov file high res.)
sigur rós - Glósóli video (13.7 MB .wmv file)
sigur rós - Viðrar vel til Loftárása (13.6 MB .wmv file)
sigur rós - Svefn-g-englar video (26.7 MB .wmv file)
FAQ about the Glósóli video
Even more videos by sigur ros
AAAAA I can't afford the trip to Reykjavik (sp?) but I wish you the most amazing time. Be aware that their concerts are better if no one moves or makes any noise. And yes, it's OK to fall asleep.
by the way, this isn't my blog account so don't try to respond through it... found it on bugmenot.com
wow...thanks for the intro to these videos...esp. Viðrar vel til Loftárása...how poignant...great to use with my writing students...to illustrate how fantastically music can inspire the story!
:) great post!!