Sigur Ros aren’t big on putting what they do into words: this, after all, is
the band who called their most recent album ( ), and sang it in an
indecipherable gobbledegook they call Hopelandic. If Sigur Ros were ever to
go in for mottos, though, theirs would probably be something like: “Think
local, act global.” Last week, they flew home to Reykjavik from LA after a
six-week world tour. In two weeks, they are back on the intercontinental
circuit, playing some of the biggest gigs of their 11-year career, including
a headlining show at the 18,000-seat Hollywood Bowl. The new album they are
promoting, Takk ..., is their first for a major label. Having written them a
huge cheque in 2003, EMI has accorded the band priority status, just behind
Coldplay and Kate Bush, in its Christmas marketing schedule.
Today, however, the singer, Jonsi Birgisson, is sipping a cappuccino in a
coffee shop on Reykjavik’s main street, soaking up the ghostly, grey morning
quiet of Europe’s smallest capital. This place looks more like somebody’s
living room than a cafe, and if the other customers recognise Iceland’s most
famous living male vocalist, none of them lets on. “There’s so much action
on tour, and when some people come home, they just get depressed,” he says
cheerfully. “But I really, really like it in Iceland — to be isolated, to
read books and to have a normal life. If you don’t want to be harassed, you
just turn off your phone.”
For the rest of the day, Birgisson plans to help his American boyfriend sort
out the student visa he needs to start a new course at Reykjavik University.
First, however, a few words about Takk ..., the album that Sigur Ros all
feel, quite rightly, to be their best effort to date — best in that it has
all their signature grandeur and churchy choral effects without that
occasional aura of introverted gloom. The songs this time are more concise,
a shade faster and bursting with delightful new details: music boxes, a
celesta, various bell sounds, some striking string and horn arrangements.
Many of these innovations grew out of the band’s musical collaboration, last
year, with the avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham, on his Split
Sides show. Artiness is firmly shown the door, however, when the guitars
take over: if they so choose, Sigur Ros can give U2 a run for exhilarating,
crash-bang rock.
“Everybody has been asking us, ‘Is this your rock’n’roll album?’” Birgisson
says. “But we never really plan anything. Everything happens by accident.
The songs are intense because we wanted to make something happier-sounding,
because now we are living in happier times.”
At last. Sigur Ros used to be a notoriously moody and uncommunicative bunch.
This aspect of the band came to the fore when they released ( ) in 2002.
Problems with one of their independent labels, Play It Again Sam, coupled
with the fatigue they felt at having played these songs for two years before
recording them, lent ( ) a truculent, sombre atmosphere that suited the fans
they already had without winning them many others. A new, comfortingly rich
deal with EMI bucked them up no end, apparently.
Their guitarist and keyboard player, Kjartan Sveinsson, puts the old attitude
down partly to shyness and partly to wariness. “When we started, people told
us, ‘Don’t trust anybody in this business, not even your mother.’ Now we are
more grown-up, less sceptical.” Grateful, even: the title of the new album
is Icelandic for thanks. It’s a word that Sveinsson says “has been following
us around for a while”.
It is certainly the case that the normally harsh world of rock has been
consistently gentle with Sigur Ros. When they began, in 1994, they were a
bunch of teenage metal-heads who, as Birgisson puts it, “got into some of
that old hippie ambient stuff we found in our parents’ closet. You just take
the best from everything.” They took their name (which translates as Victory
Rose) from Birgisson’s newborn sister. That had nothing, though, to do with
his preference for high, girlish vocals. “I sang that way because I was shy,
and because there was nobody else,” he says.
“I found that when I sang falsetto, I could tune my voice more and control
it.”
When Sigur Ros began making their breakthrough second album, Agaetis Byrjun,
in 1999, they all still had day jobs, which meant recording through the
night. It took them 18 sleepless months to finish, but, according to
Sveinsson: “We knew it was going to be big.” How right they were. Unassisted
by media hype or marketing money, the album eventually sold 600,000 copies
around the world, and its dreamy lead track, Svefn-g-Englar, became an
alternative anthem — and a huge favourite with potential advertisers.
“We have turned down millions,” Sveinsson says. “But for me, the really
important thing is how precious music is to people, especially when you are
younger, when a song might connect to a special emotion. We are not saying
anything important — there’s no message in our music at all — and that’s
great, because people can take the songs and attach them to themselves.”
In the democratic spirit of the band, Birgisson takes a more relaxed view of
commercials — “It’s only music, it will only play for six months, and we are
only like this small sand dust in the universe” — but he won’t fight
Sveinsson over it. Sigur Ros don’t do arguments, ever, and besides, he’s
“really happy Kjartan feels so strongly about it”.
They are completely united in their enthusiasm for the new album and the
visually lavish show that accompanies it. Birgisson says that recording in
their own studio — a converted swimming pool by a river on the outskirts of
Reykjavik — has made them both more relaxed and more adventurous. “It’s
amazing to have your own studio. It gives you the courage to play celesta,
vibraphone, whatever.”
Performing the new material live is a thrill, too, he says: “After every show,
we sit around and talk about what could go better or run smoother, like the
lights, or other technical things.” How typical of Sigur Ros’s absorption in
their craft, I say, that they should spend their after-show hours having
constructive conversations such as these, while other rock bands fritter
away their time in bars or making the acquaintance of members of the
audience. “Ah, but we do that too,” Birgisson says, with an enigmatic grin.
Takk ... is out on September 12
