It dawned on me the other day, standing in a crowd of about 3000 people watching sigur ros play, that I'd actually seen them before, probably about 10 years ago. Back then they had long hair, Jónsi had already started using the bow and they played for a crowd of maybe 30 people at 5 p.m. in a small downtown venue in Reykjavik. I wasn't very interested in them then, and not until this sunday evening did I finally start to get excited about them. In fact I was flabbergasted, what a great piece of show they put on, at times so delicate that people whispered, and the whole of the 3000 people were quiet, and slowly nudged their way around if they needed to move, and at other times I counted 17 instruments all blaring away at the same time, creating a majestic wall of sound. Spectacular, spectacular!

They have a new video avilable on their web site, this time accompanying the song Hoppípolla, which I don't however find a particularily interesting song. It's a nice video, following the escapades of a gang of "senior citizens" who wreak havoc on the unsuspecting public, and each other. Too bad the "high resolution" version of the video is really crappy, and the low res version is just plain unusable.

When I was young, growing up with my parents, it was customary to listen to the news on the boring grown-up radio channel while we had our dinner. Preceding the news were the "news of deaths and funerals" where an indifferent, yet slightly sad voice announced all deaths in the preceding days, and where and when the funeral was to take place. I haven't heard these announcements in many years now, but then again I haven't turned on the "boring" radio channel since I moved out from them, and still being relatively young I do not expect to hear any sad news of my old friends just yet. However this "newsflash" was accompanied by it's own theme song, which is where this ties in with the aforementioned sigur ros, because they covered the song which is called "Dánarfregnir og Jarðarfarir" (News of deaths and funerals), or at least it's thusly named in their version of it.

For us Icelanders it's an oddly macabre song because of this; although it's meaning may be lost on others it always reminds us of death, and the sad monotonous voice bringing the ill tidings on the airwaves. Oh yes, and it's the final song in the moving film "Englar Alheimsins", fittingly accompanying the movie's final scene. So cheer up and download it here:

sigur ros - Dánarfregnir og Jarðarfarir

On another note related to sigur ros, there once was a band called Soðin Fiðla, an abominable name which directly translates as "Boiled Violin". In my opinion though they were a great band and it's a shame they only made one album, which was more of an E.P. than actual L.P. It's a good indie-rock album with lots of broken chords and noise akin to Ride or The Pixies. And sigur ros' singer, Jónsi, sings backing vocals in the only song available for download:


Soðin Fiðla - Fyrirmynd

Boiled Violin's EP "Ástæðan Fundin" is for sale on the Bad Taste website.