It’s a big day for Sigur Rós. This morning they surprise-released Átta, their first album in a decade. This evening they begin an ambitious tour that sees them perform new tracks, rejuvenate familiar favourites, and resurrect rarely heard classics — with the help of a 41-piece orchestra.
Admittedly the idea of a band teaming up with classical musicians is nothing new. Everyone from The Who to Def Leppard have done it, with varying degrees of sincerity and success. But few groups are as suited as the Icelandic trio to a full-scale collaboration with the London Contemporary Orchestra. The ensemble and their conductor Robert Ames are an integral part of the new LP after all; they delicately imbibe what singer/guitarist Jón Þór “Jónsi” Birgisson describes as the “really sparse, floaty and beautiful” new music with even more bleakness, more hope, and more beauty.
“We wanted to allow ourselves to be a bit dramatic and go far with these arrangements,” Sigur Rós’ returning multi-instrumentalist Kjartan “Kjarri” Sveinsson explained in the Átta press release. But, with most of their albums having featured orchestrations, they know the value of restraint. “Of course, you have to be careful not to go full Disney on it,” he told The Guardian. “You’re playing with emotions, but you don’t want to force-feed it. It’s not like foie gras.”
So, like the LP, everything about tonight’s Meltdown performance is more subtle than you’d imagine when the stage is absolutely packed with people, chairs, music stands, cellos, violins, double basses, french horns, kettle drums, trombones, a grand piano, and probably a glockenspiel or two. There are no florid musical detours, nothing as gauche as a bassoon solo or self-indulgent as a flourish of piccolos. There are no grand statements from Jónsi, Kjarri, or bass player Georg Hólm. (Characteristically nobody says anything and, cocooned by the LCO, the trio are sometimes obscured as they casually go about playing their own instruments as part of the ensemble. Jónsi even takes to crouching, out of sight, when not required to sing.)
There’s no glitzy symphonic pops staging — much of the mood is created by the glowing of the familiar naked lightbulbs squeezed onto the Royal Festival Hall stage. And when last were you greeted at a gig by the very pleasant, very Icelandic smell of wood burning?
It’s against this backdrop, and across two hour-long performances separated by an interval, that Sigur Rós cast their spell, beginning with the sweeping Blóðberg. Named for the bright pink “creeping thyme” that contrasts the bleak, colourless landscapes of their homeland, it sets the tone for the new album and much of what follows tonight. Ylur (contrasting Jónsi’s pretty vocal with some melancholy, almost menacing strings) and Skel (complementing moments of quiet introspection with cinematic swells of violins) also represent Átta’s magnificence. But, as on the album, it’s 8 that’s the most beautiful, most devastating, most likely to bring involuntary tears.
Starálfur is just as moving by staying true to the original’s arrangement (including the bits where it’s just Hólm on acoustic guitar) and is just one of many songs from Sigur Rós’ back catalogue to make a return after years in the wilderness. With The LCO in tow, the band can revisit their subtler, richer, more orchestrated moments. So tonight there’s nothing as thunderous as Svefn-g-englar or as forceful as the middle part of Sæglópur. And there’s no love for the apocalyptic Kveikur (the album recorded while Kjarri was out of the band).
Instead we get three standouts from the elegiac Valtari, which the group once described as “an avalanche in slow motion”, including the startling live debut of Varðeldur that begins with various orchestra members singing quietly and ends with that circular piano riff played to an absolutely silent auditorium. The stark, funereal Untitled #5 – Álafoss gets its first airing since 2001 and remains a masterclass in restraint, pairing Jónsi’s slowly intensifying falsetto with brass and strings that take just as long to climax. Von, not heard in concert in over 15 years, has even more gravitas than the live rendition on Hvarf.
And the all-hands-on Hoppípolla, surprisingly not played in a decade, gets the full Technicolor treatment — complete with a giddy waltz detour that makes the original sound like it was recorded under a railway pass. It’s just one of several “hits” (tracks that absolutely everybody in the venue recognises within three notes) that Sigur Rós drop into the set. Untitled #1 – Vaka and Untitled #3 – Samskeyti are particular spine-tingling standouts. Filled with anxiety, all spiralling out of the tension within Kjarri’s beautifully minimalist piano melodies, they’re the perfect expression of this experiment. Three friends who’ve known each other since they were teenagers, who understand each other so well they barely need to speak when writing new music, are now playing as one with 41 classical musicians.
Meltdown Festival: Sigur Rós
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
16th June 2023
Photo: Victor Frankowski
- This article originally appeared on Louder Than War.
Nils van der Linden 