SVEFN-G-ENGLAR

As far as I can tell this was a US-only release. Can't remember where I picked it up but I did so for the two unreleased live tracks that form the second half of this close on 35 EP (that's the length of a whole album in old vinyl days!). And if you're a Sigur Ros afficionado it's worth getting just for the live stuff alone. The first two tracks both appear on Agaetis Byrjun but the second two are unavailable elsewhere and were recorded by the Icelandic Broadcasting National Broadcasting Service at the Icelandic Opera House on June 12th 1999. The first live track Nyja Lagid is an epic sllice of what Sigur Ros do best - almost funereally paced space rock that wanders across nine blissful minutes of lush soundscape. It's about as glacial as the landscape the band comes from - and as monumental. The guitars (bowed and otherwise) send out huge washes of lush distortion, the keyboards are floaty and Floydian and the drums are almost non-existent, just the merest lazy pulse in the background to keep the smearing swathes of noise in check, it's a beautiful song, the equal of anything on Agaetis Byrjun. The second track Sybdir Guds is more structured, more song like in feel but is equally well received by the enthusiastic crowd and by me. This is Sigur Ros at their most uplifting, most soaring. () would be a much more sombre, minimalist affair. On these two live tracks the band's place at the top of the post rock tree is defended with ease. The three-star rating is given simply because two of the tracks appear on Agaetis Byrjun and in essence you paying for a couple of live curios. But if you're a Sigur Ros nut then these two tracks are must haves.

SIGUR ROS laid a hybrid egg that you see on the cover, I am laying you the singular chronicle!

1 Intro' ideal, avant-garde, ethereal, the intro you put back, too short, you didn't see it coming! 2 Svefn-G-Englar' which comes from the sonar we agree; an abyssal sound, a bow that will become famous, the unequaled vibration, the sound and the voice in glossolalia, additional falsetto to disturb pleasantly, the soundtrack of a film that I recommend before 50 years old, otherwise it's cooked, the sulfurous 'Vanilla Sky'; the 1st part of RADIOHEAD which had felt the innovation dripping from this young group; short, let's get back on topic, a new minimalist sound that blew me away when it was released... for the cover, here it is... it must be insane; short 10 minutes passed and I forgot to mention it anyway it's so personal that everyone who knows will want to keep SIGUR ROS in his musical heart and not share it. 3 Starálfur ... ah those classical instruments that make you melt, the bucolic, dreamlike atmosphere; the sound, the voices from elsewhere, this heady redundant melody, these sinister violins which illuminate our vision of the world, it's beautiful... quite simply, shh, a message from the morse code I thought it was over 4 Flugufrelsarinn attack; ah yes the titles are often chained and amplify the art-rock sound, hello Louis!; a recognizable sound here with the diabolically played bow, in an angelic way I allow myself; brief oppressive atmosphere, heavy as a midnight sunrise; the sound becomes more basic for listening, where you get used to it or you are picked up and transfigured, well we continue 5 Ný Batterí with its dissonant brass, an air that does not know where it should go, a musical dawn, an unreal atmosphere and the falsetto voice that clouds the mind; I adore these noises of abacuses that are put away, I adore these suspicious noises which keep your ears alert, I adore this dismembered battery which gets going, I adore; do you realize that we have a sound that comes from a non-rock band that does art-rock, do you realize that? 6 Hjartað Hamast (Bamm Bamm Bamm) for the 1st proto rock title precisely with bass, piano, harmonica, good yes in the Scandinavian countries we have plains; the hard guitar licked by the bow, you have to see it to understand this sound; the voice always between two languages, even three; a title that breaks away from the unhealthy precedents, filled with unhealthy complacency, everything the prodigy actually adores; it's good and austere, it's colorful and full of grey, it's funny, laughable and magnificently spleen; the final stressful not possible brings 7 Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása with the aerial piano and synth intro, those that WRIGHT used in the titles of PINK FLOYD, psychedelic period we agree; you remember the clip that went with it, with these slow motions... proof that the prog really slows down time; you remember Vanilla Sky where time seems suspended... yes some of them still haven't understood the plot, ah a flight of violins, it's over! 8 Olsen Olsen for the most listenable title on a radio, so as not to frighten those who listen only to stupid noise all day long; ; the title where the heady bass sets the tone, where the singer with his Jumbo hat gets it on, where the final tune makes you want to go frolicking in the green meadows, in the gardens of Lewis CARROLL where the big toad from LOVE IS ALL 9 Ágætis Byrjun for the eponymous title, repeat I didn't quite understand; a conventional piano changes; we no longer know if we are in a cabaret for the drum brushes, if we are in a western for the saloon piano; it's sweet, Jónsi with his characteristic voice gives the change for the ballad that kills, conventional but after all this past hour, we have the right to a little rest. 10 Avalon moreover, in the end, the title that closes the album on an old wind keyboard not tuned at all, on a soundtrack found from a potential crash in the desert of area 51, a sound from nowhere, dark, look like we're in Dunkirk in 40 all of a sudden, this reverberating sound that monopolizes your air and your attention SIGUR ROS is therefore the album to have in your discotheque so as not to die stupid, yes the watch at 50 years old I have already said it! The grandiloquent borderline album that doesn't get done, the standard album that reminds me of who it corresponds to an hour, even if we go over 70!

An OMNI isn't the 70s, not the 80s, not the year 2000, it's something outside of time that will be heard when we're gone! It's this album. (5 for the album of course.)