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Live versions from a range of concerts throughout the late 90’s and early 00’s, demos and alternate mixes all appear here to shed further light on how the Sigur Ros sound developed around this time. To celebrate Ágætis byrjun’s twentieth birthday the album has been reissued with a veritable treasure-trove of bonus material. In short, the contemporary musical landscape would be rather different if it wasn’t for Ágætis byrjun. To modern ears one can see how this record provides a crucial link between fellow Icelandic acts like Múm and Björk and international artists such as Radiohead and Arcade Fire. Combining traditional rock instrumentation with chamber music, ambient techniques, dream-pop and contemporary classical composition, Sigur Ros create a style of music that is at once immediate and ethereal. While many bands have taken from (or wholesale ripped off) the sonic aesthetic of this album, the unique blend of sounds that the Icelandic group pioneered here has rarely been bettered since. After the modest success of 1997’s Von, Ágætis byrjun brought the band a global audience and ended up in several ‘Album Of The Year’ lists - and a few ‘Album Of The Decade’ ones, too.
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I won’t spoil any more of the experience of a first listen, other than to say that this slow tempo sonic masterpiece will take considerable time to absorb.While Sigur Ros’ second LP Ágætis byrjun (A Good Beginning) was released in 1999, the record has rightly gone on to be regarded as one of the more important indie releases of the 21st Century. Not without horror, disappointment, and reverie, Sigur Rós walks us toward a celebratory contentment with what God provides. The only view of Iceland I’ve ever received is through the films of Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, such as Children of Nature and Cold Fever. The dramatic development of the narrative is set to a composition that makes just enough contact with Western traditional music to keep it accessible, with string octet, bowed guitar, and brass ensemble providing the dominant settings. Much has been made of Sigur Rós’ music and how it reflects the landscape and climate of their native Iceland. I strongly recommend listening to this album while following an English translation of the lyrics (unless, of course, you know Icelandic!). And in his reflexive effort to check his surroundings, he notices that something is missing-the walls.Īnd we’re only four minutes into the third track. Then, as a toddler, an awakening in his nursery room is marked by the image of an elf running toward him, strangely without getting closer. It’s a rare album that can induce tears on a first listen, but this is it.Ī first person narrative beginning in the womb, a boy anticipates nativity with an awareness of transience, reticence, impatience, and the explosive violence of birth, followed by experiences of the comforting softness in his early sensations. Ágætis Byrjun is an amazing breakthrough which has inspired dozens of bands-the reverberations are still being felt today. Not all the tunes on Ágætis Byrjun are as timeless and wonderful, but there's plenty to enjoy here. At over ten minutes, it's long for a pop tune, but the running time goes by in a flash because the music lulls you into a trance state. The breakout track is the title cut Svefn-g-englar, which steadily builds to an epic conclusion slowly dying away.
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It's more the ever so patient accrual of layers of bowed guitar, keyboards, strings and horns, all played legato, and how all of it is recorded through echo and reverb and other production tricks. How do they pull it off? It sure isn't the melodies and the harmonies, which are standard issue. For sure, you can trace Sigur Ros' antecedents in My Bloody Valentine, Mogwai, and other similar post-rock bands, as well as ambient and industrial music, but the widescreen cinematic dreamscapes of Sigur Ros are unique to them. Singer Jónsi Birgisson delivers harrowing primal caws throughout tracks like Ný Batterí and Olsen Olsen but there’s no telling what he’s saying. Ágætis Byrjun is a triumph of engineering and arrangement, but most of all, it's a triumph of imagination. That’s an accurate translation of the title Ágætis byrjun, and yet in precise terms it does not fit the album it belongs to. Sigur Rós’s Ágætis Byrjun (An Alright Start) is an entire album of such gorgeousness for which you’ll need a pair of headphones and a napkin to wipe up your inevitable mess.