takk

as mentioned in a previous post, amanda gave me the gift of live music for Christmas this year. i didn't get to unwrap it until last night, & there is no adequate symbolic language that could capture or even attempt a description of this show... but i'll do my best.

the lovely icelandic ladies of amina opened for & accompanied sigur rós. it is difficult to see in either of these photos, but the girl in the foreground is playing a large saw with a bow. this band began as a string quartet, but aside from the traditional strings, their repertoire of instrumentation has evolved to include, but was not limited to: a jack-in-the-box, multiple 'ring-for-service' bells, the saw played with bow & mallet, mandolin, xylophone & many other things that i either couldn't see or have never seen before. the sigur rós portion of the show looked like this as it began, with a sheer curtain in front of the stage that many lights & shadows danced upon. very dramatic, very suspenseful. indeed, i shat myself.you can see the shadow of georg here in the center of the scrim. he played bass. sometimes he played it with a drumstick.
this is kjartan. he played mainly piano/ keyboards, but occasionally wailed on a cracked out piccolo/ flute. believe it or not, i did NOT edit this photo. i didn't edit any of them except bringing up the light on amina & the last photo, & some cropping. yes, i am proud.
the venue was the uptown theater, a old converted [you guessed it!] theater with a sloped floor, some seating in back, a balcony, & great accoustics, providing the perfect container for the evening's tapestry of sound. this was one of the first shows in a while where i didn't have earplugs to dull the crashing of percussion, etc., but i didn't need them. wilco & others will be sharing that very stage in the near future.

this is orri. he is easily the hardest working progressive/ambient rock-pop, icelandic drummer i have ever seen. most drummers just keep a beat & play an occasionaly solo, but not orri. when not playing the xylophone or other imaginary instruments they have invented, he was wailing on his drums & cymbals, in keeping with the eruptive, layer-upon-layer build of each song. yet, as jenn pointed out, it was never too much, always just what the music needed.
meet jónsi. he is most of what you see in that blue/white blurr in the foreground. he is the vocalist, singing in icelandic & filling in the gaps with his own made up language. if there is one characteristic sound of sigur rós, it is jónsi's electric guitar played with a cello bow. that & his angelic shrieking, that's pretty distinctive too.[it has been described by the uninitiated as 'icelandic opium den music'. clearly no appreciation for fine things] here he can be seen doing what he does best as amina accompany in the background.



i took this photo during the song entitled sæglópur [roughly translated 'lost @ sea'] right at the moment where, about 30 or so seconds in, there is this explosion of sound [if you've heard the song, you'll know exactly what i'm talking about]. i just read that there will be an extended sæglópur ep & video released in the spring, with 4 new songs. they described it as coruscating, which the dictionary defines as: 'friggin awesome'.this was my moment of heartbreak, the final bow. they did 2 encores, & played for about 3 hours [though it seemed like only a few beautiful moments-much like a shooting star ;)].

admittedly, many of my photos are blurry. now, we can argue all night about who is to blame for that, but the point is, my distance from the stage & difficulty holding still while the shutter was open notwithstanding, this photographic phenomenon should be seen as a metaphor for the music. from start to finish, their music was a beautiful blurr, constantly moving, shifting, building, erupting, & never still until the last ferocious smash of orri's sticks on the drums, sending them flying as the grateful audience screamed for more, knowing it was over....

probably the best Christmas present ever.

takk is the name of the current album & is translated 'thanks'.

if i havent driven you away yet, you must be either already a fan, or incredibly patient. in either case, give a listen to the stream of sigur rós' live concert from reykjavík last nov. i have just finished listening to it in its 1.5 hour entirety while composing this mammoth blog post. it's the next best thing to being there, although no amount of listening to this band recorded could rival the live experience.