Blue Hawaii – Untogether

[Arbutus, 2013]
Buy: Direct

The artwork of Blue Hawaii’s Untogether perfectly depicts the music about to emanate from the record you’re pulling out of its sleeve. A man and a woman embrace, imposed atop one another in a way where it is unclear where the man ends and the woman begins, and vice versa. Each wears a forlorn expression, as if that unfathomable closeness is linked by the pain they share, by some dark connection that bonds them forever. Raphaelle Standell-Preston and Alexander Cowan (also known as Agor) present their music in the same way; at any given time it’s unclear where Cowan’s fluttering production ends and Standell-Preston’s voice begins. Untogether shows the purest integration of each of their gifts, and how the connection they share with their music allows them to become a singular entity.

The lines are blurred almost immediately. Bass bubbles pop and hiss in the lead-in of “Follow,” and Standell-Preston’s lone “Oh,” ping-pongs back and forth through the mix, establishing her vocal as a tool for Cowan to utilIze in his intricate arrangements. The song establishes Untogether’s dark atmospheric tones (a shocking contrast to their sunny Blooming Summers EP), and Standell-Preston’s long, haunting aria to open the record sounds like she is dueting with a glitching, robotic version of herself. The eerie intro gives way to intricately woven rhythmic textures that seem to burst into full life from nowhere; in fact, much of Untogether’s appeal is the fact that things come from nowhere, shockingly propulsive beats manifested out of moments of serenity.The two-part suite of “In Two” and “In Two II” oscillates from the contemplative to the utterly monumental. It’s easy to get lost in the waves of sound before you snap to at the sound of the dense, jungle rhythm of “In Two II.”

Untogether tells the tale of two records in a way, depending on how you decide to digest it. At low volumes, songs like the “In Two” suite come across as dreamy twinkles of electronica, but louder, more intimate examinations of the record prove there is some serious dancefloor fodder here. It’s a testament to the level of complexity at play in Blue Hawaii’s music that these two vastly different–opposing spectrum ends, even–listening experiences can be obtained from Untogether, and how well either of them stands apart from the other. The record is a new breed of headphone music; in combining the physical tendencies of dance music with the ear candy of cerebellum-attacking electronics, Cowan and Standell-Preston have found a very unique voice with Blue Hawaii.

Many fans of the Montreal duo didn’t think that Untogether was going to be made. Standell-Preston is also the singer of the dream pop outfit Braids, whose 2011 LP, Native Speaker, was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize (an annual award given to the best Canadian full-length record of the year). With Braids’ popularity taking off in between Blooming Summer’s release and the recording of Untogether, the future for Blue Hawaii seemed to hang briefly in the balance. It’s somewhat surprising that it all came together in such an impactful and cohesive way, given the changes within the duo’s dynamic at the behest of Braids’ success. Cowan said in a recent interview that, “The big difference between the last one and this one is that we were working on this one separately, sort of. I would spend a night in the studio doing stuff, and then Raphaelle would do it the other night, and we would kind of trade on and off duties doing that for the entire length of it. So this kind of weird thing developed where we never really played any of the songs together or we just worked on it in the music itself. We didn’t sit in the same room and do it until it was finished, and now we’re playing it live or whatever.” Standell-Preston commented that while the conditions weren’t ideal, they yielded a tremendous and interesting result, saying, “It was just kind of what life provided for us at that time.”

On the other hand, it doesn’t seem that the situation will change anytime soon. All signs point to Standell-Preston enjoying an evenly split life between the weighty pop of Braids and rapidly expanding electronica of Blue Hawaii. On the lead single of Untogether, “Try To Be,” she seems to be examining that dichotomy in her life-along with reconciling the loss of her childhood dreams–before finally coming to grips with it over a chorus of bleeps, saying, “May as well just be me.”

Sigur Rós At The Fox Theatre, Detroit, Michigan

Sigur Rós At The Fox Theatre, Detroit, Michigan, April 1, 2013. Photo by Matt Nedwicki.

Sigur Rós announced the upcoming release of their newest album, Kveikur, two weeks ago, as the band was poised to start the North American leg of their tour. The announcement was accompanied with the revelation that the sound would be “more aggressive” than usual. While I didn’t know exactly what to make of a “more aggressive” sounding Sigur Rós, who are known for characteristic droning build-ups to expansive, cathartic releases, it did not dampen my eagerness to experience their world-renowned live show when they came to Detroit on April 1^st. Like all the Icelandic emotional tour-de-force does, it promised to be spine-tinglingly impactful.

The opener for the night, ambient producer Daniel Lopatin’s project Oneohtrix Point Never, played a tranquil set that placated anyone who had taken their seats—leading to a calm anticipation around the theatre upon completion. Any action that wasn’t silent or deliberate suddenly seemed grossly inappropriate. When Sigur Rós eventually took the stage, the musicians were separated from the audience by a stage encompassing, semi-transparent screen. This served as a medium for the projections used throughout the first two songs. The opener, entitled “Yfirborð”, further extended the tense serenity gently asserted on the audience by Daniel Lopatin. The Icelandic ensemble wordlessly took the stage, and introduced themselves to the audience by playing melodic, gentle drones as images of spore-like projections spread out across the screen, which by now seemed more of a biological membrane than human construct.

As the second song, “Ny Batteri” began, shimmering bright images were intermittently displayed on the barrier as the frontman, known simply as Jonsi, took center stage with his electric guitar and a cello bow. Spotlights were projected at an oblique angle from Jonsi’s rear, causing his projection to appear huge on the translucent screen. The projection was less man than it was giant, insectoid silhouette, passionately impaling its instrument with a shadowy sword. When the song built to a crescendo and more members (with their respective shadows) were incorporated, the screen that had seemed so organic earlier was now the audience’s only guardian from the group. Just as the wall of sound reached a point of blissfully unbearable tension, there was a subtle change in key, and the screen suddenly fell to the stage—revealing the band, now surprisingly human-appearing, and a barrage of lighting and effects. There were eleven members in total: Jonsi on lead vocals and guitar, a bassist, and a drummer – the three at the very core of Sigur Rós – accompanied by a keyboardist, a multi-instrumentalist, a female violin trio and a three person horn section.

When that partition dropped, the tension that had been building so steadily was abruptly relieved. There was a sudden emotional openness to the audience now, a willingness to be captivated by anything that Jonsi and his troop thrust upon us. The experience the rest of the way wouldn’t be solely musical though. A stage-width display behind the performers was also revealed at the climax of “Ny Batteri”. Short, abstract films that coincided perfectly with the music were projected for the remainder of the concert. Each film was unique and each left indelible impressions on the song that it accompanied. Images ranged from mysterious- shadowy travelers on distant mountains signaling to each other using lanterns – to morose – gas-mask clad antagonists perpetuating totalitarian acts of violence upon faceless victims. Audience members were faced with a choice at the beginning of each song: let yourself become captivated exclusively by the music as you watched the members of Sigur Rós passionately slave over their respective instruments, or become engrossed in the screen’s overriding narratives as the musicians provided a perfect, post-apocalyptic accompaniment.

The most memorable of these film adjuncts escorted “E-bow”, off of the band’s ( ) album. The song, actually named after the electronic tool utilized by bassist Georg Hólm to create a signature atmospheric bass sound, is more so characterized by the slow, driving drum beat throughout. It is in time with this drum beat that the film and lighting effects were coincided. What appeared to be a close-up image of jet-black, rocky soil was projected on the screen, which had been lowered to stage level. As the song began, the projection began descending, giving the stage the disconcerting appearance of steadily climbing out of a never-ending rocky pit. The beat and the climb remained at a uniform speed while the other instrumentation swelled. Right as the song reached its climax, the pit startlingly opened up to the surface of a deserted, dystopian environment. The entire upward journey had been for nothing, the hope for ascension to bring paradise or bliss was shattered.  While that was about as haunting and gloomy as the show ever became, none of the other film complements were exactly uplifting: most themes bordered on unsettling, often with apocalyptic undertones.

The whole experience was engrossing, overpowering and disturbing all at once. Crashing climaxes and musical brilliance were the status quo for the night. However, while there were moments of undeniable beauty in the music performed, there was definitely a forceful creepiness to the performance, often due exclusively to the visual effects. If their new album is supposed to take a “more aggressive” direction, it has seemingly oozed into their live performance as well. Sickly images unseated the normally uplifting feelings I associated with the group. The only way to avoid the dark themes was to close your eyes for the entirety of the show and listen only to the music, shamelessly ignoring the complete message of the artists. However, maybe that’s what Jonsi and Co. want us to realize. There are terrible things happening whether we decide to accept that or not. Things that are not inspiring or uplifting. Closing our eyes to atrocities does not make our world a more beautiful place. It just makes us bystanders.
But yeah, great show.

Blue Hawaii – Untogether

Blue Hawaii
Untogether
[Arbutus, 2013]
Jeff Pearson, February 26, 2013
Buy: Direct
Listen: “Try To Be”

The artwork of Blue Hawaii’s Untogether perfectly depicts the music about to emanate from the record you’re pulling out of its sleeve. A man and a woman embrace, imposed atop one another in a way where it is unclear where the man ends and the woman begins, and vice versa. Each wears a forlorn expression, as if that unfathomable closeness is linked by the pain they share, by some dark connection that bonds them forever. Raphaelle Standell-Preston and Alexander Cowan (also known as Agor) present their music in the same way; at any given time it’s unclear where Cowan’s fluttering production ends and Standell-Preston’s voice begins. Untogether shows the purest integration of each of their gifts, and how the connection they share with their music allows them to become a singular entity.

The lines are blurred almost immediately. Bass bubbles pop and hiss in the lead-in of “Follow,” and Standell-Preston’s lone “Oh,” ping-pongs back and forth through the mix, establishing her vocal as a tool for Cowan to utilIze in his intricate arrangements. The song establishes Untogether’s dark atmospheric tones (a shocking contrast to their sunny Blooming Summers EP), and Standell-Preston’s long, haunting aria to open the record sounds like she is dueting with a glitching, robotic version of herself. The eerie intro gives way to intricately woven rhythmic textures that seem to burst into full life from nowhere; in fact, much of Untogether’s appeal is the fact that things come from nowhere, shockingly propulsive beats manifested out of moments of serenity.The two-part suite of “In Two” and “In Two II” oscillates from the contemplative to the utterly monumental. It’s easy to get lost in the waves of sound before you snap to at the sound of the dense, jungle rhythm of “In Two II.”

Untogether tells the tale of two records in a way, depending on how you decide to digest it. At low volumes, songs like the “In Two” suite come across as dreamy twinkles of electronica, but louder, more intimate examinations of the record prove there is some serious dancefloor fodder here. It’s a testament to the level of complexity at play in Blue Hawaii’s music that these two vastly different–opposing spectrum ends, even–listening experiences can be obtained from Untogether, and how well either of them stands apart from the other. The record is a new breed of headphone music; in combining the physical tendencies of dance music with the ear candy of cerebellum-attacking electronics, Cowan and Standell-Preston have found a very unique voice with Blue Hawaii.

Many fans of the Montreal duo didn’t think that Untogether was going to be made. Standell-Preston is also the singer of the dream pop outfit Braids, whose 2011 LP, Native Speaker, was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize (an annual award given to the best Canadian full-length record of the year). With Braids’ popularity taking off in between Blooming Summer’s release and the recording of Untogether, the future for Blue Hawaii seemed to hang briefly in the balance. It’s somewhat surprising that it all came together in such an impactful and cohesive way, given the changes within the duo’s dynamic at the behest of Braids’ success. Cowan said in a recent interview that, “The big difference between the last one and this one is that we were working on this one separately, sort of. I would spend a night in the studio doing stuff, and then Raphaelle would do it the other night, and we would kind of trade on and off duties doing that for the entire length of it. So this kind of weird thing developed where we never really played any of the songs together or we just worked on it in the music itself. We didn’t sit in the same room and do it until it was finished, and now we’re playing it live or whatever.” Standell-Preston commented that while the conditions weren’t ideal, they yielded a tremendous and interesting result, saying, “It was just kind of what life provided for us at that time.”

On the other hand, it doesn’t seem that the situation will change anytime soon. All signs point to Standell-Preston enjoying an evenly split life between the weighty pop of Braids and rapidly expanding electronica of Blue Hawaii. On the lead single of Untogether, “Try To Be,” she seems to be examining that dichotomy in her life-along with reconciling the loss of her childhood dreams–before finally coming to grips with it over a chorus of bleeps, saying, “May as well just be me.”

Grouper – The Man Who Died In His Boat

Grouper
The Man Who Died In His Boat
[Kranky, 2013]
Nick Torsell, February 26, 2013
Buy: Direct
Listen: “Vital”

I

was introduced to Grouper, real name Liz Harris, in the worst way possible. It was at a rock venue opening for Animal Collective where the ceilings were too high, the bars were too well lit, and the audience was waiting for the next band. She played her slow, steady hymns to the backs of heads, the subtle lilt of her voice lost in the din of others’ conversation. There was something vital in the messy beauty of her music, and I went home not thinking of the band I came to see, but the quiet concentration of the woman playing guitar by herself on stage. Almost four years later, Harris’ new album, The Man Who Died In His Boat, featuring unreleased material recorded in 2008, will be released on Kranky.

In a profile in the December 2011 issue of The Wire, Harris expresses an affinity for religious music, “The kind that sounds as though you are really calling out for something to come and save you.” That longing is expressed in Harris’ music, which is melancholic, but not defeated. Harris’ voice surfaces above droning guitars, occasionally revealing obscured lyrics that work more like sighed confessions. There’s a certain intimacy to her vocals, like you’re overhearing someone on the phone with a close friend. You almost feel like you’re intruding. On The Man Who Died In His Boat, the lyrics are shrouded in echo and reverb for most of the album, until you get to the third last track “Towers.” Here the gauze is removed, and her voice begins to shape and take on meaning.  The break appears later in the track, a surprisingly bright guitar builds to a staccato climax, she pleads, “Let it out.” This moment props up the entire album, everything builds to here, and then slowly climbs downward.

Looking back on Harris’ work since her debut album Way Their Crept in 2005, there’s a narrative restlessness. Harris doesn’t work sequentially; she picks up work at different times and then leaves them to follow other paths. Her previous two albums, A I A: Alien Observer and A I A: Dream Loss came together after amassing a couple of year’s worth of material and then finally stitching the reworked pieces together. In an interview with The Quietus, “I didn’t yet know what working on music looked like after I’d had to change my relationship with it due to work, other life changes, etc. I didn’t really know what any of it would be, until I sat down with all the material and started working on it. But I had been thinking about it that whole time, and slowly starting to see these twin planets emerging. It took more than a year following that to really pull into that shape. [It] felt like dredging a swamp, everything coming up half decomposed.” If it weren’t accompanying every review or news article on the album, there would be no clue The Man Who Died In His Boat was recorded five years ago. It fits in neatly amongst the A I A series as well as Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill, albums that came out years apart. It only works because her music is so otherworldly, so out of time with anything that could date itself.

Tracks like “Vital” and “Cloud in Places,” which recall Flying Saucer Attack’s Rural Psycedelia’s I-could-see-for-miles loneliness, are almost achingly beautiful. Like if you removed Kevin Shields lead vocals on “Sometimes” and just left Bilinda Butcher’s background vocals. On “Cover the Long Way” Grouper leads her vocals to the front of the mix, multi-tracking them until they’re incomprehensible and giddily muddled. It’s almost impossible to pick up anything concrete, but instead of being disorienting it sounds more like a dreamy escape, a hollow to nuzzle into.

The Man Who Died In His Boat, like all of Harris’ work under the Grouper name, is music for one. She sings on “Living Room,” “I’m looking for the place the spirit meets the skin/can’t figure out why that place seems so hard to be in.” It’s startling because it’s so clearly stated, accompanied only by a single guitar line and faint tape hiss. It’s a harrowing moment; the lines come out slightly warbled, like she can barely let them go. It’s a feeling she explains in The Quietus interview, “Part of being honest and compassionate about what it means to be human involves assembling all the awkward parts together in the same room with what’s been polished, finding a way to incorporate the flaws into the pattern.” Looking back, I think the reason a lot of the Animal Collective fans couldn’t sit still during Grouper’s set was because it was uncomfortable. But for that show, and for The Man Who Died In His Boat, that willingness to lay something bare made them better and more endearing.

Andy Stott – Luxury Problems

Andy Stott
Luxury Problems
[Modern Love, 2012]
Nick Torsell, October 31, 2012
Buy: Direct
Listen: “Numb”

Last year Andy Stott released two EPs, We Stay Together and Passed Me By, both featuring intimidating deep bass and jackhammer percussion. They brought him to the steps of idol-hood for anyone who loved their noise and dance music crushed together. The two EPs were released separately, but functioned together as a breakthrough, allowing Stott the ability to tour more and quit his day job repainting wrecked Mercedes in his hometown of Manchester. Luxury Problems, Stott’s new album released on UK label Modern Love, and his first full-length since 2006’s Merciless, is a masterpiece. With the addition of his childhood piano teacher, Alison Skidmore, on vocals, Stott has made a clear progression and turned in something monolithic and gorgeous.

The first single, “Numb,” calls back to Burial’s Untrue and James Blake’s CMYK in the way it cuts up a straight vocal track into something broken and haunted. Stott on Skidmore’s vocal contributions in an interview with Larry Fitzmaurice on Pitchfork, “I didn’t give her any narrative, I just asked her to send me something. She did some a cappellas, I took chunks out of them, spliced things together, treated the vocals, and built tracks around the atmosphere.” On “Numb,” it sounds as if Skidmore has just been woken up, whispering lyrics with the relaxed cadence of the recently dreaming. It’s contrasted with a bludgeoned bass, resounding with a thud behind her as her words pile up and wind around each other until they lose any sort of ability to differentiate themselves. The track chases it’s tail until all that’s left is a single word, “touch,” repeated over and over.

If you’ve ever seen the press shots of Joy Division on Epping Walk Bridge, you can see how an album like Luxury Problems gets made. A product of the same grey and white town that looms behind those photos, Stott’s album fits amidst the industrial waste and brutalism of Manchester’s outer fabric. Stott mentioned his and Modern Love label-mates Demdike Stare’s affinity for their hometown’s industrial dread in the Fitzmaurice interview, “There’s something about nasty noises that make us pull our faces back and say, ‘Yeah, that’s it.’’ The album’s ability to put something calmly lost behind something dark and forced is its greatest asset. Stott will put Skidmore’s crystalline vocals through harsh bass and percussion without losing any of the original vocal effect. “Hatch The Plan”, the almost nine minute stunner that bisects Luxury Problems, is the best pairing of something kind with something nasty. Skidmore’s prettiest vocal take soars above the screech of a train perpetually about to come out of a tunnel, all while Stott weaves the bass into something snarling and vicious.  It’s music for someone to bob their broken neck too.

Luxury Problems‘ title track, however, flips his script. Skidmore finally gets a diva take as she coos confidently alongside a strutting bass line.  The next track, “Up The Box,” recalling the way Squarepusher and Aphex Twin do pop, is built around a bouncy hook and water-trickle bass sound that coalesce into a four-on-the-floor beat.

On the last track, “Leaving,” Stott echoes and multiplies Skidmore’s voice until it sounds as if she’s singing at the bottom of a pipe organ. It’s her most stunning take on the album while a house-y synthesizer marches underneath her cavernous voice until it almost passes into dream-pop, then settles back into a sound Stott has been crafting all album long that is wholly his own. For Stott to follow up the menacing techno of Passed Me By and We Stay Together with Luxury Problems’ patient dance music was not the most predictable path for him to take, but now it can be seen as the definitive right one.

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Godspeed You! Black Emperor – ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!

Godspeed You! Black Emperor
‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!
[Constellation, 2012]
October 7, 2012
Buy: Direct
Listen: “Mladic”

Few bands can get away with releasing their “reunion” record in the fashion that Montreal’s Godspeed You! Black Emperor have sprung ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! on the unsuspecting public. Excited fans approached the merchandise table on the band’s first date of their United States tour in Chicago, scanned the various tee shirts and records until some unfamiliar cover art caught their eye—a grainy black and white photo of a square, bleak-looking adobe building in the middle of a desert. A beacon of light shone down from the ceiling upon this unexpected piece of wax, a choir of “ahs” seeming to emanate from the record itself. It was what they had been waiting for a decade long—new Godspeed You! Black Emperor music.  It shouldn’t come as too big of a surprise that Godspeed decided to release this record with such minimal fanfare; the octet is notoriously opaque with press and has always done a good job of staying in their music’s shadow as individuals. It may not seem like it at times, but a lot has changed in the music world since Godspeed released their last record, Yanqui U.X.O. While they were away, it has become increasingly difficult for artists to remain opaque, and before the show in Boston was even over, the Internet was abuzz with talk of their new record.

Though virtually silent in the media throughout their illustrious career, Godspeed has always made a lot of noise through their music, speaking not with words but through the pure emotional response their volcanic instrumentals invoke. They seem to explore the depths of their instruments, building tension before finally pulling heart-wrenchingly gorgeous melodies to the surface and allowing them to fully take their hold on the listener. The thing that has always made Godspeed such a prominent act in the post-rock genre is their patience; no other band allows their songs to stew quite like they do, and the waits between their massive pillars of sound make it that much more intense and gratifying when the ascend upon the listener. Each towering melody that Godspeed has crafted throughout their career comes like a tidal wave, bringing with it clarity and meaning in the context of the listener’s life. No matter at what point in a person’s life one of their songs comes, it seems to be the exact aural accompaniment to the state of mind associated, the soundtrack to match whatever pitfalls or peaks fill their days.

Finding that clarity, that beauty, across the desolate expanse of a Godspeed record can be one of the most emotionally rewarding experiences, representative of the uplifting nature of the human spirit even within the darkest days. The constant darkening of those days in the time that the band was on hiatus has obviously taken a toll on their music; ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! comes at a chaotic time in the world’s history and is perhaps Godspeed’s most aggressive record to date. The album opener, “Mladic,” shows that chaos and that whatever beauty there is to be found these days is superficial at best, menacing anger at worst. The track, which made its way onto many setlists last year as “Albanian,” blossoms from squealing guitars communicating as strings swirl around, owing a lot to the Hungarian scales predominant in the area in which the namesake Ratko Mladić terrorized, to a gnarled and slightly grotesque punk-rock drone. The song seems to constantly build upon itself, guitarists David Bryant, Efrim Menuck, and Mike Moya creating a relentless chug before the entire thing collapses in a flurry of descending melodic runs and explosive drumming from Aidan Girt and Bruce Cawdron. At twenty minutes, “Mladic” is as clear an indication as any that Godspeed hasn’t lost a step; just as the tension couldn’t be any more palpable, they release it in a firestorm of percussive rock, all the frustration and anger the band feels about the times the record finds them in tumbling out of them. It’s a different sort of release than the undeniable beauty of some of their classic songs like “Storm” and “Moya,” unforgettable and uplifting melodies pouring out of the speakers, but the way that their tangible anger spills out through that tumbling crescendo is beautiful in its own right.

‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!, at four tracks and just under an hour in length, is comprised of two soaring, twenty minute rock instrumentals—“Mladic” and “We Drift Like Worried Fire”—and two ambient drones meant to serve as bridges, perhaps breathers from the intensity of those tracks. The first of those is “Their Helicopters Sing,” a mournful drone built around Sophie Trudeau and Thierry Amar’s haunting strings while guitars buzz around the edges of the mix like a swarm of wasps. It’s during Godspeed’s quieter moments that the listener can truly feel the immensity of their music; their high-flying grasps for heaven during the loudest, most forceful moments of “Mladic” are put into a fuller context as they stretch out the space on the record on “Their Helicopters Sing.” The opposite is also true, and without the eerie atmosphere of the record, the theatrics wouldn’t seem as memorable; everything comes together to give ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! the same cohesion that we are used to from Godspeed.

“We Drift Like Worried Fire” sees a new take on a bit of the more traditional side of Godspeed; tremolo-picked guitars soar atop an eerily beautiful melody as bassist Mauro Pezzente gives depth to Bryant’s gorgeous guitar tone. There is something strikingly different about the Godspeed we see on ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!, however, and it’s prevalent on “We Drift Like Worried Fire.” Whereas throughout the bulk of their career, the band has showed beauty in the face of despair, hope in the shadow of pain, as “We Drift Like Worried Fire” collapses into dark and militaristic nuances, they seem to be saying that the pain is ever-present, the hope a mirage. It’s a bleak record in that regard, but the passion and technicality that the music is played with is something to find beauty within in and of itself. It’s something to get used to—the vision of hope in dark days is something I have always turned to Godspeed’s music for—but as the record unfolds itself over multiple listens the beautiful moments will reveal themselves. If anything, the record is a challenge to the listener to find that hope themselves. For now, Godspeed is just telling it like it is.

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SIGUR ROS – VALTARI

THE MEN – OPEN YOUR HEART

Sigur Rós – Valtari

Sigur Rós
Valtari
[Parlophone, 2012]
Jeff Pearson, September 17, 2012
Buy: Direct
Listen: “Varúð”

One of the very few good things about working through the liquidation of Borders—just over a year ago, now—was the fact that we could play whatever music we pleased on the overhead speakers. Corporate was a specter of the chain of events that led us there, and we didn’t have to answer their call to play the same four promo discs until our minds were numb; we at least had that freedom to choose our own soundtrack to our last days as a store. On the very last day, the few people winding the day down, waiting for the last customers to come through and pick up their fixtures, were sitting around what once was our information desk, turned into a red island in a sea of carpet—our last vestige of what we once had in the cavernous building. I was scrolling through the music on my iPod, looking for something particularly indicative of what we were going through and could possibly guide us to brighter days. I chose Sigur Rós’ “Festival,” the incredible centerpiece of their most current record at the time, Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust. To me, the song had been perfect in illustrating the feelings that we were going through—or at least the ones I was going through, and helped me out along the way during the liquidation process. The somber beginning, with Jónsi Birgisson beautifully willing your emotions in whichever way he pleased, was representative of the initial hurt we were all feeling, losing not only our jobs but also the place where so many memories had been made and relationships forged. I personally met the love of my life in that store, and many people over the years fell in love just as I had, whether it is with a person or a book. As the song picks up, a crescendo tumbling on top of me, the memories came tumbling with it. While each memory passes before my eyes, a feeling of peace seems to be building up within me. The way the music is so powerful and emotional allowed me to see clarity beyond the present turmoil that we were in. I knew, as the final notes of “Festival” faded away, that we were all going to be okay.

Fast-forward to a year later, most of us settled into the next chapter of our lives, the memories of the last hollow days of Borders dissipated and replaced by the fuller days we experienced there. After letting the latest Sigur Rós record, Valtari, sink in over the summer, opening itself up to me under starry skies on drives home and the rare overcast morning, the coming autumn is bringing it all into perspective. The music of the Icelandic group seems to grow exponentially better with the air temperature dropping; I don’t know if it’s their affinity for cold weather that allows them to convey the feeling of a harsh winter so eloquently, or just that no other group has the ability to paint a grey sky blue like Sigur Rós, but something about their emotional “slow motion rock” envelops the listener like a blanket. Valtari is no different. Though the record is a change of pace for the band—the space present on Valtari is expansive, asking patience of the listener in letting the tracks breathe and slowly blossom—it proves to be one of their most slowly unfolding, yet enriching listening experiences among their already stunning catalog.

“Ég Anda” opens the album by subtly introducing the many elements on display throughout the duration of the record. Jónsi’s voice seems to come from within a deep cavern, and as the song progresses, the listener is guided slowly to the inside where the band is performing. At first his voice is accompanied only by strings bouncing off the walls around him, disjointed guitars and ambient synthesizers. The listener breaks through to their world as Orri Páll Dýrason’s delicate, yet always overwhelmingly powerful drumming enters the mix. Sigur Rós performs their music entirely in their native language of Icelandic, and sometimes in a more interpretive “Hopelandic,” a means for Jónsi to deliver his hauntingly beautiful falsetto without necessarily tying the music to a specific meaning. Due to the foreign nature of the language used, it becomes even easier to connect emotionally to their music; the fact that lyrical content shapes the way we listen to music is definitely something that is felt even in its absence. Sigur Rós asks the listener to close their eyes and allow the music to extract feeling from the sound of the music, rather than the content. As a result, Valtari constantly walks a fine line between melancholy and celebratory.

Though Valtari is sparsely composed, relying heavily on ambience and ethereal atmospheres rather than the overwhelming power of their all-out post-rock attack of the past, the entire record falls wholly in the celebratory category. It is best to consider as a unified piece rather than a collection of songs; they let some tracks play the role of interludes of sorts, deep breaths as they collect themselves for the next peak. “Ekki Múkk” is a classical-leaning track that sees bassist Georg Hólm and the band’s programming wizard Kjarri Sveinsson provide massive swells to lay underneath Jónsi’s soaring vocal. The somewhat minimal approach allows the listener to really feel and explore the space provided—emotions tend to wrap themselves around the shimmering vocal and enter the stratosphere as his voice breaks through the plane of notes and delivery that seem humanly possible. The track gives way to the more straight-forward—in Sigur Rós’ world, anyway—“Varúð.” Built around a simplistic three-chord keyboard progression, the song constantly climbs to new heights, serving as the arguable peak of Valtari. “Varúð” feels like coming home after a long day of work in the chilling winter; there is a comforting and enveloping nature to the intensely structured sound, guitar sounds extracted with a violin bow, and climbing drums and bass.

Valtari spreads itself back out from there, providing chilling moments that are constantly evolving to the next chilling moment. The highly meditative “Dauðalogn” can practically be touched and held, though the fluid nature of the song allows it to always slip through the listener’s grasp. The same could really be said of any track—the last three songs, made of up of “Varðeldur,” “Valtari,” and “Fjögur Píanó” serve as a closing suite that, when looked at as a whole, is so tangibly stirring that the songs are drops of rain coming from the sky, each note or subtle drum hit lands on the listener’s head and rolls down their face. The pacing of the record, though perhaps not the best accompaniment to stifling summer days, is incredibly rewarding when given time to take it in, and the appropriate setting for it to be impactful. Valtari isn’t going to be the most easily accessible Sigur Rós record, but fans of the band will find the album to be highly beautiful and transcendent of even the work they have done in the past.

As for that day, a year ago, my coworkers at Borders nixed “Festival” pretty much from the very beginning, looking for something a little bit more upbeat to try to take their minds off of the sad state of affairs surrounding us. I completely understood—the music of Sigur Rós is incredibly interpretive and could possibly only open itself up to be uplifting if the listener is ready for it to be. I guess the music has always hit me at the right time, searching for a destiny, going through a life-changing event and seeing people I care about hurt, or even on the drive to visit my future father-in-law’s—whom I had met only two days prior to his hospitalization—burial site to tell him I mean to take care of his daughter forever, SigurRós has always been there for me right when I needed it, to give me strength. There are just some things in life that cannot be controlled, and music can help us cope with that realization. For me, there has never been an artist that is more life-affirming and beautiful; when listening to Valtari, that all-too familiar feeling washes over me, like I am lying in a riverbed and the music itself is the water rushing over my face. That feeling is that we are all going to be okay.