Monday 17 August 2009

Riceboy Sleeps, it's Icelandic

While writing how to be god and trying to understand Twitter I've been listening to the Jónsi & Alex album 'Riceboy Sleeps' (Jónsi of Sigur Rós and his partner Alex Somers). It's not easy music to just sit down and listen too (even though I will, lots of times); it is, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, background music. The familiar highs of Sigur Rós songs aren't found here, it's a constantly low-impact and ambient 68 minutes. I wouldn't normally be interested in this sort of thing, but the Icelandicness of it has pulled me in. It does sound like Sigur Rós, consisting entirely of their trademark ethereal soundscapes. But it's slower (maybe hard to imagine) and Jónsi's voice only appears once, buried deep in the third track. It's most comparable to a song like 'Sé lest' or 'Samskeyti', just without any of the volume. It's a wonderful thing, and it hasn't even grown on me yet.

Here's what I'm talking about. You'll either like it or you'll fall asleep. Maybe both.

2 comments:

  1. If you like this album, you should check out Talk Talk's Spirit Of Eden (if you don't know it already). There's no Icelandicness but it is similar slow moving, otherworldly and bit of a lost classic.

    www.last.fm/music/Talk+Talk/Spirit+of+Eden

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  2. I'll definitely give that a look. Thanks.

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