So I went crazy with the new Sigur Ros album. Not only did I purchase the deluxe edition of their new CD (which includes a downloaded copy that came out a week before the general release, a physical copy, AND a deluxe edition to come out in September that will feature not only a making-of, etc., DVD and a booklet with photos from the making of the album but also an actual physical strip of film from the movie), but I also bought the album (pre-ordered) on iTunes so I could get the bonus track "Heima." All told, I will end up with four different versions of the album: 2 physical CDs and 2 digital. How's that for obsessed.
Oh, and I am dying to get tickets for their October 1 show in San Diego (my brother and I are planning to attend that one). I got up at 6 AM my time to purchase tickets last week only to discover (after checking the site for 2 hours) that the show's tickets weren't going to go on sale for another week.
As my wife says, I'm an obsessive sort. When I focus on something, I REALLY focus on it. That goes for everything I do--writing, creating music, reading, watching TV, travelling, and so on. I jump into things head first and don't look back. It's a good way to live, actually, as you end up enjoying lots of things, but it's also a bit costly when you don't stop to ask yourself whether I can afford the stuff I want. When I was making nothing as a TA, it was a problem (got into debt). Good thing my salary is higher now!
I got my downloaded copy of Sigur Rós's new work on Monday when I was in Florida on a family trip. I got it a week before the official release date because I pre-ordered at Sigurros.com (got the deluxe edition, which includes the download, a CD copy, and a deluxe copy of the album to be released in September and which will include a bunch of extras, including a DVD). I've been listening to it off and on these past few days (I was traveling, so my active listening has been sporadic). But I absolutely love it. It's brighter, cheerier, and more vibrant than their earlier works, and but it's still Sigur Rós--operatic, emphasizing mood and tone over everything else.
On Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, the focus is less on the drone (as in earlier works) and more on the beat. It's not commercial, but it's definitely more accessible to those who are turned off by the singer's voice or the length of some of their tracks (there are two long tracks, but the rest are short) or by the rather melancholy nature of their earlier music.
For an example, check out the first two tracks. "Gobbledigook" is a wonderful pagan song with lumpy beats, wails and cries, and a rush of energy and celebratory noise that was such a shock when I first heard it on BBC's Radio 1 that I wasn't even sure it was Sigur Rós until I downloaded it and listened again and again. But it's definitely SR, only with a very different focus: celebration, not contemplation. I said it was a pagan song because that's what it feels like to me--the rush of rhythms and emotions building across the song until it's abrupt three minute end, like a mini pagan ceremony on the summer solstice. It also doesn't seem to follow traditional rock song formats--it seems to possess a form all its own, conducive to the odd rhythm (drums hit by sledgehammers) and the "lalalalalas" that flit like birds around the Jonsi's vocals and the dueling acoustic guitar interplay. There's something very elemental about the song, that's for sure--like it floated into our world from a very distant time. The video--with its naked people running in the woods, reminiscent of the pagan scene in Andrei Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev--is also a giveaway for the pagan focus.
The second track, "inní mér syngur vitleysingur," is perhaps the best song (emphasis on that last word) Sigur Ros has ever recorded. At the very least, it possess the catchiest melody, with (again) a thumping beat playing with a keyboard-lite ditty that mixes with vocals and choirs and strings and a whole mess of other stuff that all builds into a crashing burst of joy at the end (like all good Sigur Ros songs are supposed to end). This one's four minutes long--so taken together, the first two tracks on this album are about the same length as most of the songs on ( ) and Takk...
What this album tells me, more than anything else, is that Heima changed the band for the better. The free concerts they did in Iceland brought a ton of positive vibes to the band in their native country. The film also forced this naturally shy band to open up and discuss themselves, their music, and their ideas. Finally (and most importantly), the acoustic performances at some of those concerts (along with other acoustic performances which were the featured in the film) allowed the members of the band to look at their own music in a new light. Their music has always been beautiful and haunting, but I think playing songs like "Voka" in an acoustic setting revealed a lot of the joy that is at the heart of their music. I'm not saying the band didn't know their music was joyful--I'm sure they did. But it's easy to get lost in the passion and the power of this music when there is an emphasis placed on feedback and amplifiers. Slowing down, quieting down the songs allowed them to breathe and be reborn in a way on Hvarf -- Heim, and it's this breath that I sense in Með suð. The acoustic renditions must have inspired the band in an immense way--particularly considering that this whole album was conceived, recorded, mastered, and released in the first six months of 2008 (and just after Heima was released).
And now I hear they're coming to my neck of the woods in San Diego. I can't wait to hear the band live and experience all facets of their music, from the blistering noise to the quietest whispers of Jonsi's wonderful voice. They are one of the great bands of our time; this is one of the great albums of the year; and their live sets are truly events (as anyone who has seen Heima can attest).
Bonus: for those of you who are having trouble pronouncing the title of the album, here you go: the "ð" letter is pronounced "eth," so "Með suð" is pronounced "Meth sueth" (and not the "Med sud" spelling I'm seeing on a lot of web sites). "í" (with the accent) is pronounced like "ee" (as in peel). "Eyrum" is pronounced "a-rum" (the "ey" is pronounced like the "a" in "pale"). "við" is "vith" and the rest is pretty much just "spilum endalaust" (except the "au" is pronounced like the "o" in "pole"). All together: "Meth sueth ee a-rum vith spilum endalost." At least, I think that's it. It's been a long time since I've spoken Icelandic to anyone, so I'm probably screwing something up here.
There's a brand new Sigur Rós album coming our way in June, entitled Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust (in English, With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly). Apparently, the band just finished the album a month ago and they wanted to release it immediately.
As a teaser, you can now download the first single, "Gobbledigook," at their web site--and if you do that you HAVE to check out the video, which is a wonderful complement to the song (plus, lots of nudity!). [Oh, and the song might be playing on the widget in the post below.]
I've been a big fan of Sigur Rós for a very long time. Their music is ethereal, oblique, powerful, and [add more cool adjectives here]. I listen to them all the time--much to my wife's consternation (though she can't talk--she's obsessed with Depeche Mode). When I first heard the new single (earlier today, when it premiered on BBC Radio 1), I was amazed how different this song (and, ostensibly, the album) was from their previous music. Their earlier music is, to me, very elemental--kind of a soundtrack to their native Iceland and its geysers, glaciers, volcanoes, fjords, and empty, open spaces. I visited Iceland when I was 15 (spent two months there, as I noted in a previous post); that experience (over 20 years ago) permanently burned Iceland's beauty and emptiness into my thoughts and dreams. What shocked me most about the new single is how alive it feels--how human, warm, earthy, and even playful it is. These elements are evident on earlier songs (especially on Takk...), but there's a messiness here that is pretty new. That's messiness in a good way--in a Rolling Stones kind of way.
I'm still not entirely sure what I think about the new song--can't say it's the best thing of theirs I've ever heard. But it is new and is very different from anything else in popular music, so I am excited by this direction and look forward to hearing the whole album so I can put the song (and the emotions that came with it) into their proper context.
I encourage you to download the new song, check out the video, and let me know what you think.
This is part two of my whoever-knows how many part exploration of my musical history. Self-indulgent to a fault, I know, but at least I'm honest about it!
The first album [well, actually, it was a cassette. I didn't have a real record player, just a little Walkman. My
parents weren't big fans of me buying music (they thought it was a
waste of money), so it was easier to sneak a cassette into the house than an album] I ever bought was Men at Work's Cargo. No, that's not the album with "Down Under." That's Business as Usual. Cargo
was their follow-up with songs like "Overkill" and "Dr. Heckyll and Mr.
Jive" and "It's a Mistake" that were actually a pretty big deal in the
early 80s but have disappeared into the void of time since then (like
the band itself). I don't remember what I liked about the group
specifically. I guess their music was catchy and their videos were
silly (yes, I had MTV). I guess those qualities were strong enough for
me to feel the tug of going to the record store and buying the
album--something I really hated doing because the store was one of
those where everything was behind a counter and I had to call someone
over to take it out for me. Isn't that annoying? I don't know when
stores stopped doing that and let people buy music just be pulling it
off a shelf--but back when I was first buying music, I had no choice.
My second album? Why Business as Usual, of course. I
thought it was a letdown, though. Beyond "Down Under," it was pretty
dry. Listening to these today, I get the reason they were popular in
the early 80s. Lots of tasty hooks, good beats, fun melodies, and
plenty of horns--they took all the popular bits of music from that time
and mixed them together in an Australian bag of iconic fun. It didn't
last, but it was fun for a while, which is exactly what pop music is
all about.
At that time, I still knew nothing about music other than the fact
that I liked it and wanted to hear more of it. Of course, my taste
left something to be desired. That was, in part, because I was still a
little afraid of music. Long hair, screaming, freaky clothes--those
were alien to my rather conservative upbringing. Guys like Men at Work
were harmless and, therefore, perfectly acceptable--not just to my
parents (who knew nothing about music and would have preferred it that
I shared their ignorance) but to me as well, who, at 14, was a big fan
of Reagan and was as straight-laced as you could get.
Ah, but then I bought The Police's Synchronicity. I remember
looking through the cassette's liner notes, noticing all the odd fonts,
and thinking, "This is too wild for me. Those letters look like
graffiti!" At that point, I resolved not to buy any more albums. Ha!
Well, The Police were (along with Michael Jackson) the biggest thing in
music at the time. [Oddly enough, I didn't buy Thriller until about a
year later--after I'd been thoroughly indoctrinated in music. I think
I waited because so many of my "rocker" friends hated Jackson's
music.] I remember listening to their music over and over again over
several weeks and months. The music itself wasn't spectacular, but the
lyrics--they seemed deep and significant. Now, I was not well-read,
but I tried to be. I tried reading lots of serious novels and even got
through a few of them (like 1984 and Dune). More than
anything else, I wanted to seem deep and intelligent and sophisticated,
and The Police seemed all those things. I even bought Jung's book on
synchronicity just so I could learn more about the album's title and
its implications. Synchronicity appealed to me in a big way because it
was just the kind of thing that made me feel special, important,
knowledgeable. As naive and silly as that might sound today, it did
teach me something about music: that it's not just fun, entertaining
tunes. There was depth there, as well. I wanted to learn more.
The road to musical knowledge, however, ran through MTV and local
Top 40 radio (KIIS FM in LA), so my first few months of serious music
listening, reading, and shopping consisted largely of obsessing over
the standard hits of the day: Duran Duran, The Thompson Twins, The
Fixx, Cindy Lauper, Phil Collins, Howard Jones, and on and on. This
music was a lot of fun to listen to--they had the hooks and those
great, shimmering moments of brilliance in them (the big drums kicking
in the middle of "In the Air Tonight," the "flex-flex-flex-flex" at the
start of "The Reflex," and even the cool synth bridge in Van Halen's
"Jump") kept me listening even when the other parts of the songs
sucked. Still, in the back of my head I knew that this stuff wasn't
really what I was looking for.
Closer to the mark was Run-DMC. I was the manager for my high
school's basketball team, and yes there were a bunch of black guys on
the team that I became friends with. They turned me onto rap long
before rap was anywhere near popular in mainstream culture. The first
time I heard "Rock Box," I was blown away--it was something completely
different, something truly revolutionary. I felt it even then as a
music noob. It was raw, harsh, angry, exciting, and powerful--and it
still holds up today. Then again, the more rap I heard (I did buy
Run-DMC's album), the less I enjoyed the actual rapping part and the
more I appreciated the beats and the samples and the fact that they
took the best bits from other songs and repeated them over and over
again. That was something I'd always wanted to do with
music--celebrate that great, shiny moment of brilliance in an otherwise
mediocre song and play that bit forever--and they did just that. It
was awesome. Of course, it took Public Enemy to turn it into high art
worthy of study, but Run-DMC paved the way.
Run-DMC certainly showed me how music can challenge me sonically,
but U2 and Bruce Springsteen showed me what music was capable of.
Springsteen's Born in the USA and U2's The Unforgettable Fire
were both released around the time I started getting into music. It
took me a while to get into both artists, but when I did they truly
transformed not only my taste in music but my entire outlook on the
world.
This is the first of a series of entries I'm going to add detailing my own musical history in an incredibly thorough, obsessive, and self-indulgent way. I apologize for nothing, not even the opening sentence below!
I barely listened to music for 14 years. This was, in part, because my parents weren't into music much,
so I didn't have many opportunities to learn about or experience
music. But there were exceptions, and those exceptions were often
rather intense experiences as I look back on them. See, I was an
obsessive little kid. When I was 5 or 6, I fell in love with Glen
Campbell's "Rhinestone Cowboy" for some reason. I think they played it
during a golf tournament or something and I really liked it so my dad
bought the single for me. I think I listened to it over and over again
on our record player for a week and a half until my sister hid it from
me and probably ripped it apart out of sheer frustration.
[Come to think of it, I've always done stuff like that--fixate on one
thing and make that one thing consume my interior life for brief but
intense periods. I still do that, actually. I've been a huge fan of the iPod since they came out. I've had (I think) four iPods in all, including my current 80 gig that allows me to carry around about a quarter of my entire record collection. A few weeks ago, I bought an iPhone
recently and spent a week learning everything I could about how it
worked and what programs were available for it--and above all figuring
out exactly what songs and albums and videos to add to it from my
enormous collection. I wanted to streamline my iPod collection down to 2 or 3 gigs to create a sort of "Best of" list I could carry around in my pocket. I knew I needed
whole albums from Boards of Canada and Pan Sonic and Sigur Ros and Lee
Scratch Perry and King Tubby and Richard Thompson and all my other
favorites, but there were scores of individual songs I could throw into
the mix to create a truly diverse and inspired collection...stuff like
"Do the Mussolini Headkick" by Cabaret Voltaire, April March's "Chick Habit" (heard first at
the end of Tarantino's Death Proof), a bunch of songs from
Portishead's eponymously titled second album, "What Goes On" from VU's
third album (their best, if you ask me), some cool stuff from Wire
including their awesome stuff from the last decade, my favorite White
Stripes songs (I really like "Take Take Take"), along with some Sly and
the Family Stone, Waterboys, Pole, KImya Dawson, Rolling Stones, Iggy
Pop, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Amiina, Brian Eno, David Bowie, Gang
of Four, Fairport Convention, Radiohead, Kraftwerk, and Nick Cave &
The Bad Seed. Some of this really is my "best of" stuff; others are just things I enjoy listening to right now (and will be swapped out at some future date). So I organized,
arranged, picked, and chose all these songs, along with 28 different
awesome complete albums, and put them all on my iPhone and was happy
until I realized I'd left a few things off and needed to figure out
what to take off so I could add those other things. And so I did that
for about a week, fixating on what was on the list and what could be on
the list, going back and forth on my iTunes from playlist mode to
catalogue mode just imagining the many possibilities. I'm still fine tuning the list as I write this, in fact.]
I don't know exactly what attracted me to "Rhinestone Cowboy," but I'm certain it
had something to do with the moment between the verse and the chorus,
the moment of silence between the words "I'm gonna be where the lights
are shining on me" and "like a rhinestone cowboy," the moment when the
drums stop and the melody is fading away ever so slightly...until BANG
the "like" and the big drum and the strings sweep in. That moment is
infinitely small--it's not even a real silence--but it was powerful for
my little ears, in part because it perfectly captures the anticipation
that something big is just about to happen. And though I liked the
chorus and probably sang along to it a million times (both while the
record was playing and when it wasn't), it was always a little bit of a
disappointment, as it didn't live up to the promise of the pause, the
promise that something truly transcendent would emerge from that
half-silence, when in fact what did emerge was more music.
Even then, I was looking for something more than just music. Of
course, before I could really discover what it was I was searching for,
I had to start with the basics. I needed to learn about music. That
took a while, as it turned out. My childhood musical
focus was limited to what was in the house--stuff like The Muppet Movie album and the Annie
cast soundtrack. I'd hear things on TV or on the radio or at a a friend's house, but I never had much of a referent, a place to go and learn more (this was decades before the Internet, obviously).
So I really cherished those albums I did have, those songs I did understand. And, like with the Campbell song, the moments that stood out, that propelled me to listen to songs over and over again, were small, almost innocuous things like the almost out-of-tune banjo picking at the
beginning of "Rainbow Connection" or the high-pitched parts of
"Tomorrow" (when the voice is almost floating too high to hear) or, later, the rumbling synth cymbals at the start to Vangelis's Chariots of Fire theme, which even today gives me chills (the movie too). I listened to each of these songs innumerable times, often waiting for those unusual moments--waiting to hear something that I didn't quite understand.
So I liked music--I understood that at an early age. However, I didn't really capitalize on this interest in any meaningful way until one moment in high
school when I went to an assembly where some kids were performing a
bunch of skits and other things. Towards the end, one guy came on
stage and lip-synched and danced to Michael Jackson's "Beat It." I
didn't know much about Michael Jackson; I didn't even know what
lip-synching was. But the music slapped me in the face. That beat,
that groove, that voice... where did they come from? Is there more of
it?
I enjoy year-end lists, if for no other reason than they highlight movies or albums I missed over the course of the year. My favorite year-end list is at Brainwashed, with the key section (for me) being the reissues of the year and the boxed sets of the year. From the Reissue list, I found out about the Nico Frozen Borderline: 1968-70set, which includes two of Nico's late 60s collaborations with John Cale, The Marble Index and Desertshore, with additional unreleased demos and alternate takes included for good measure. From the boxed set list, I found out about Robyn Hitchcock's I Wanna Go Backwards, which combines Hitchcock's first two solo albums (Black Snake Diamond Role and I Often Dream of Trains), his later work Eye, and a two-disk set of unreleased, b-side, demo, and live tracks.
Now, I've been a fan of Hitchcock's since I was in high school in the mid-80s. I had copies of his albums and his work with the Soft Boys, but somewhere along the line I misplaced them. So the boxed set was great--a chance to get newly remastered versions of some of his best albums and a whole bunch of extra stuff to boot. The Nico one, by contrast, was a stretch for me. I knew Nico from the Velvet Underground, of course, but I'd never paid much attention to her solo work. But while reading Simon Reynold's Rip It Up and Start Again, I kept seeing her name pop up as an inspiration to post-punks from Wire to Depeche Mode. So I was intrigued that two of her less well-known works would be released. Hence, I picked that one up too.
So which set do you think I've been listening to more often? Yep, it's Nico. The Hitchcock stuff sounds just like I remember it from the 80s; however, my taste in music has radically changed since then (I still love The Minutemen, but a lot of the other stuff seems dated to me). It doesn't have the freshness and edge that I thought it did--or perhaps it's better to say that I don't feel the same connection to that music that I once did. I enjoy it, but I don't want to listen to it over and over.
The Nico stuff, on the other hand, was new to me. And, admittedly, it was a bit difficult to get into at first--the voice took a while to get used to. But the music on the works (mainly by John Cale) and the astute lyrics (by Nico) really caught me off guard. It's fascinating works, far more intellectually richer than Nico's reputation might otherwise suggest. Works that mention Wordsworth ("The frozen borderline" refers to a poem by the big W) are few and far between, but Nico manages to capture the melancholy tones of European Romanticism in a way that is far more interesting than actually reading Romantic poets like Shelly and Keats. That set is a truly great listen--deep, moving, emotive, and enduring.
