LISTED: Goosebumps Vol.4 - Sigur Rós' Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása *Goosebumps is a recurring feature where we highlight on songs that what we perceive to be a complete artistic statement in terms of its melody, lyrics, and to a certain extent, its video clip as well.
We'd really love to write on about something pretty surreal for this entry here but I fear that it might get in the way of you dear readers in trying to properly 'feel' the song because sometimes, as it is more often than not with a good Sigur Rós' song, the meaning is not always implied in anyway by the circumstances that surrounds the artist who is/are singing the song. Like Sigur Rós for example: it is no longer a surprise now, now that the vocalist Jonsi has came out of the closet for so long, so normally our mind would be directed towards his sexual preferences, and further helped by the fact that the video clip for a certain song from one of their albums released in 1999 featured two boys actually making out on a field in the aftermath of a goal-score celebration. Pretty heavy stuff there, but fine; for artistic value perhaps it does have its' merit. We're cool with that. But then on comes the English transliteration of the lyrics to the song and lo and behold...
Before we got our hands on the transliteration of the song "Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása", we could only marvel at the breathtaking beauty of the song and its' other-worldly feel - because it was sung entirely in Icelandic (and thankfully not in the dreaded Hopelandic gibberish), it felt mysterious, alien, majestic, and alienating; and we absolutely loved it. We loved how because none of what was sung does not at all make sense that our imagination are allowed to roam free over what the context of the song could possibly be. A merry band of cherubs floating over clouds in the heaven singing a praise chorus towards Horus? Sure - beats the hell out of it. But then we found this...
I let myself flow onwards, I swim through my mind back and forth, my soul still sings the song we once wrote together.
We once had a dream, we had everything, we rode to the end of the world, we rode on searching, we climbed skyscrapers, but they were all destroyed the peace is gone now, I lack balance, I fall down. Still, I let myself flow onwards. I swim through my mind, but I always come back to the same place,
There is nothing left to say. This is for the best.
God will provide a day, for us.
...Tomorrow
The movement of the song is pretty much like a flower bud that is just about to bloom on a crispy Spring morning where the sun is rising over a green hill - it started off pretty slowly, in an almost gloomy mood before a stream of sunlight streaks in inside the darkened room and greet the writer who is slumped on one end of his bed, contemplating the end towards his life, and brought forward such unbridled joy it lifts the writer's spirit and sparked a hopeful smile on his weary face. Then it brings the writer on his feet as he begin to dance... well that was what we were imagining with the lyrics above. The meaning to it probably runs a lot deeper than that but so far, we're pretty comfortable with that. There is that sense of purpose and meaning at the cusp of the climax of the song as Jonsi runs through the e-bow on his guitar, creating that trademark sound so familiar with the Icelandic band, and so similar with the cries of a sperm whale. But the afterthought for the very last line in the song was pretty disconcerting as well when Jonsi sang "God will provide a day / For us / Tomorrow". At first look it seemed all joy and fun and hopeful and everything is going to be alright; but on a second thought, it was pretty damning and suicidal actually - to actually hope for a tomorrow that none of us can ever be so sure of, and to place such hope on God, it might as well be the final word on the suicide note of the writer who is in the darkened room we mentioned just now. And the song ended with string instruments ending in an abrupt discordant cacophony disarray. Dramatic song from start to finish; dramatic climax; dramatic ending; disquieting lyrics - yes, the true meaning of this song is a lot deeper than any of us could probably figure out.
LISTED: 30 Best Albums of the Last Decade (2000 - 2009)
*As the year 2010 is about to draw its curtain close, it is the time of the year (of any year) for many music sites and blogs to come up with a top list of albums of the year. Yes indeed the year 2010 has seen many interesting releases worthy of at least a top 20 list. But here at The Genuine Mind Zine we decided to do things a bit different and take a look at some of the best (of the best) releases throughout the last decade. This may not be the most comprehensive list around, lack of hip hop records for one, but all the albums listed here are indeed the most precious of last decade's precious gems.
25. Sigur Rós - Takk... (2005)
Without a single shadow of doubt Sigur Rós's best effort to date still is their second album, Ágætis Byrjun. But then due to a minor problem, that album cannot make it into this list (because or else it would have been positioned way higher than this). That minor problem is the fact that the album was technically released in 1999. So that left me with either the untitled one, Takk, or the one with butt exposed on the cover to choose from. Now, Sigur Rós did not make it into this list just to fill in a gap or something, now that I have said that their second album is their best effort so far. This may sound like consolation prize, that Takk is the band's second best effort overall, but consider the fact that it is genuinely an amazing album. A breathtaking one just to be more precise.
Choosing which album of the three to make it into this list was actually a pretty easy task. First, the untitled one, though mesmerizing in its' bleak beauty, gets pretty dreary after a while. At first, the idea of not putting any title on all eight tracks in the album, and leaving empty pages in the CD sleeve sounds pretty ingenious. Because the initial idea was to allow the listener to make up their own interpretation of the songs based on their own listening experience. So if a listener see harrowing images of suicidal men and women slitting their wrists in a darkened room, then that listener is pretty much doomed. I guess. Which actually was what I saw when I listened to the album - it was the saddest, bleakest, slowest album ever known to man. It was, for me, the perfect soundtrack for you to commit suicide to. The other problem is the monosyllabic, unintelligible warbling that punctuates the songs. None of what Jonssi sang in the album makes any sense (because it was in a made-up language). So you get frustrated halfway through the album because it kind of gets repetitious, even on the first listen.
Their fourth album on the other hand was the complete opposite of the untitled one; in fact, it was the complete opposite of all their first three releases. Sigur Rós's music, originally, was actually very dark, and even if it has beauty in it, it's in a very dark and depressing way. But with Takk... they greeted the listener with an explosion of warmth and harmony, bathed in a gentle symphony of the angels strumming their harp on pillows of cloud, opening a gate that leads the listener to a vast green field where the air is pure and there is a hint of gaiety hanging about in the atmosphere. For the first time ever, a Sigur Rós's album came to life. Kick-started by the springy "Glósóli", and then followed by the joyous "Hoppípolla", it is a desperately beautiful album. You have to shed a little tear just by the sheer enjoyment contained within this album. It will mesmerize you, it will leave you breathless, it will rock you, it will stifle you, it will bring even the most dead soul to wake - it will bring forth a new life in you. If you need a basic idea of how Spring sounds like (if it can make a sound), this album has that.
