audio clips
- (on download music page)
video clip
- chapter 3, courtesy of pias recordings [12.9 mb]
darren webb
my first visit to the barbican venue was a confusing one. nestled in between tower blocks and courtyards with skateboarding teenagers was a myriad of walkways and steps and tunnels. all of which led us to the venue. high-rise tower blocks an blue skies kept us distracted, things were different to the normal sigur rós concerts. not in a old church or in a modern venue. this was always going to be different. a modern interpretation to an old discounted icelandic ancient poem given its world premier in london isnçt something that happens every day. a sold out crowd waited, coming for many different reasons. some to see the spectacle, some to see the choir, some to hear the poem, some to see sigur rós. some left disappointed, most left overwhelmed. the hall was magnificent. huge and welcoming, with perfect acoustics. everything was audible, from the rustle of performers clothes to a simple note strung.
the stage was laid out simply. to the left from the audiences perspective was the london sinfonietta; to the right were sigur rós. the centre was taken up by arni hardarson (the conductor), steindór anderson and hilmar örn hilmarsson. to the back of the stage were members of the èsixteen choirî. between the conductor and sigur rós was located the stone marimba. an instrument comprising of 54 natural icelandic rocks.
the concert started with the strings of the sinfonietta slowly building up. immediately i was struck with the similarities to that of the estonian composer avro pärt: the slow movements with subtle changes. going from a mood of joy to despair in a matter of seconds. amazing. as it progress, jónsi started to use his bow on his guitar to add some minor elements to the background. haunting noises that complimented the movements of strings perfectly. steindór started to sing after a few minutes. his voice has become so familiar over the last year because of the recent tours and the ep. it was as powerful as ever, although sometimes a little distracting. a number of different elements were working now: steindór, the choir with both soft and deep elements, the strings of the orchestra and jónsi with an incredibly high-pitched faded away to silence. an awkward applause followed. the first applause after 15 minutes marked a change. the stone marimba became the centre of attention. steindór moved from his area and joined hilmar and kjarri. jónsi played the xylophone that was located at the side of the marimba. this movement was incredibly uplifting. the choir, the stings, orriçs drumming and the hypnotic sounds of the marimba and xylophone were stunning. this movement finished with the a few members of the choir (including the principal) slowly taking us to the end, as the other element stopped one by one. applause marked the end of this movement. the next movement marked another change on the marimba, with hilmar returning to his position and sigur rós members taking the three positions. steindór sang as before with the voices of the choir adding depth to the sound. the orchestra continued building up and then bringing it back down. then, just as a lull in proceedings was happening a new element was introduced. jónsi sitting in front of a sampler and some other machines introduced an electronic element. a jarring noise. it took a few seconds to get used to and i wouldnçt be surprised if some people thought it was an feedback loop. it seemed out of place for a minute or so, till more and more it complimented the choir perfectly. the electronica elements reminded me of the icelandic four piece electronic band, múm, and also of some works by aphex twin or autechre. strange and a surprise, but they worked well. as the piece progressed steindór again joined in and so did jónsi sampling his own voice and using it as he has done in a few recent sigur rós songs. this movement finished with orchestra, choir, steindór, jónsi and drums intertwining, and then giving way to the stone marimba again. the next song had more electronica, plus some from the horn section of the orchestra. this song progressed and was added by the xylophone and other elements from the choir. it finished with the choir. the marimba started the next song, steindór and the xylophone joined. other elements came and went.
it was always going to end on a high note. the last song is mostly a microcosm of the gig. building up over twenty-one minutes, as the song built up and as the drums were introduced in the last two minutes, you could see everyone sitting up, taking notice. the drums pounded, the choir, jónsi on his guitar and the song finished. amazing.
the concert reminded me of a few other classical pieces that i have heard: the
vocals in goreckiçs third symphony mixed together with the strings from frartes by
avro pärt. the stone marimba gave me the feeling of a childrençs story, something
about it seemed so carefree. jónsiçs electronic input was at first jarring
but quickly found its way, the contrast between the stone marimba, the orchestra and
the sampler was used well. the old and traditional, the familiar orchestra and the
new: all served their purpose. i do have some reservations about the gig. it felt
that some parts were rushed together. a few more days would have done the piece a
lot of good. the elements of the concert: the choir, the orchestra, the stone marimba,
sigur rós, steindór were all flawless, just maybe their interaction
could have been a little better. they arençt too far off making the whole piece perfect.
(darren webb)
evening standard
it is a measure of the popularity of the band sigur rós that they can put on
an evening of ancient nordic saga and icelandic folk singing, and still pack the barbican
hall with cool young hipsters. another of the only connect series of unlikely collaborations,
last night saw the reykjavik four-piece perform the world premiere of a piece entitled
odin's raven magicwith the london sinfonietta, the sixteen choir and a long-term partner,
the composer hilmar örn hilmarsson.
the band's kjartan sveinson only finished writing the piece on saturday, which really is composing by the seat of your pants. the performers had time for one full run-through before taking to the stage on sunday evening. yet this was a work of extraordinary ambition for someone who is just 26.
odin's raven magic is a song cycle which aims to be a soundtrack for a section of the norse prose-and-poetry saga called the edda. briefly explaining it won't make much sense, but here goes: the sky god odin sacrificed himself by spearing himself to a tree. nine days and nights later, he brought himself back to life, at which point he had acquired nine songs which gave him power over mortals. last night we heard those nine songs.
the stage was divided in half, on one side the black-clad members of the sinfonietta with their traditional instruments; on the other sigur rós with drum kit, guitars and plenty of mysterious electronic equipment. between them was a stone marimba, an extraordinary instrument built from 54 natural stones arranged in scale. the band members played this together, making a hollow sound not unlike tapping on more tuneful saucepan lids. it kept time in ticktock rhythms during some of the more jaunty pieces.
much of the music, however, was mournfully haunting. slow, sinister strings set the atmosphere, before friend of the band, steindór andersen, began to sing. bald, bearded and the chairman of a society dedicated to traditional icelandic song, andersen cut an imposing figure as he sang in his deep, portentous voice.
at times the performers sounded a thousand years old, at others they were almost
futuristic, swatheing the strings in scratchy drum-and-bass rhythms and sounds like
submarine radars. andersen's voice would not appeal to all, and it was a pity that
the band's musical abilities were seldom employed in deference to the sinfonietta,
particularly jon thor birgisson's angelic tones. but this was a bold piece which united
the ancient and modern in frequently beautiful, brilliant ways.
(david smyth)
the times
in a brace of lectures at the british museum last year called discovering odin, the
pop star-turned-neolithic sage julian cope made a compelling case for the norse god
as inventor of rock'n'roll.
in the great body of icelandic prose and poetry known as the eddas, it was odin who speared himself to a tree, only to come back to life nine days later with nine powerful songs that allowed him to manipulate mortals.
as cope put it: "nine songs, that's practically an album. if that isn't selling your soul for rock'n'roll, i don't know what is."
while icelandic indie darlings sigur rós and composer hilmar örn hilmarsson may agree with cope's sentiments, there was precious little rock'n'roll to be had at this, possibly the most ambitious of the barbican's only connect series of collaborative happenings - a one-off song-cycle based on odin's raven magic, the edda that was recently reinstated after doubts about its authenticity were finally quashed. should you be a little rusty on your icelandic myths, that's the one where an icelandic goddess falls into the underworld and her fellow gods have to turn into ravens in order to try to get her back.
if you were a classical music fan who just happened to be studying for a phd in norse literature, you wouldn't have believed your luck tonight. as for the rest of us, well, we got mostly what we wanted, though not necessarily what we expected. behold sigur rós, stage right, loitering self-consciously while icelandic folk singer steindór andersen and london's sixteen choir spun a sorrowful liturgy over the london sinfonietta's foreboding rumble. anyone familiar with hilmarsson's film work - most recently on cameron crowe's vanilla sky - might have recognised the sense of yearning desolation at work. the presence of a rock band and, ahem, 54 pieces of stone carefully arranged so that they made a tune when you hit them, may have been no less than one might expect from a modern experimental composer. but much of what we heard on sunday night seemed cocooned in the tradition of early 20th-century classical music - most notably the peculiar time signatures and neo-baroque stylings of the german composer paul hindemith.
if there wasn't much for sigur rós to do in all of this, you could at least
guess to whom they'd farmed out their customary duties. the funereal choral refrain
which signified the underworld evoked the transcendent semi-falsetto of the band's
frontman jon thor birgisson. sadly though, birgisson's was a voice we didn't get to
hear. indeed, save for occasional turns on the stones, sigur rós were an oddly
anonymous presence. only for the poem's conclusion, in which the gods rise up from
their sleep, did they get to plug in their instruments. when they did, you wondered
what took them so long - a glorious volcanic explosion of sound ended almost as soon
as it began, leaving only a sense of violent resolution as the house lights went up.
rock'n'roll indeed. it was, in truth, the only time you felt that odin was in the
room.
(peter paphides)
the guardian
iceland's culture is defined as much by story and legend as by volcanoes and glaciers.
and at the centrepiece of that mythic heritage is the edda, a collection of icelandic
writing more than 1,000 years old. icelandic avant-rockers sigur ros revealed the
enduring importance of these stories in their show odin's raven magic. this evening
- a collaboration with composer hilmar orn hilmarsson and traditional singer steindor
andersen - brought together the players of the london sinfonietta, and the singers
of the sixteen, as well as a film-track produced by sigur ros themselves. with these
vast forces, they had the potential to unleash the power of odin's magic on the barbican
stage.
there were interesting things in each of the musical layers. hilmarsson's string lines were slick and sensuous, while andersen's rough-edged baritone seemed from another era. sigur ros and their guitars created subtle electronic undercurrents. but the instrumental highlight was a marimba made from 54 stones. it may have looked like a prop from the flintstones, but it made an astonishing bell-like sound.
the first number set the scene. andersen intoned the progress of the myth over a melancholy string texture, the music building into a violent lament. the problem was that each of the six sections in the 90-minute show was virtually identical in shape, and used almost indistinguishable material.
what began as a portentous epic became epically pretentious. livened only by the riffs of the stone marimba, and a final burst of rock energy, the music was monochrome and melancholy. in fact, the film-track presented a more effective mix of urban and mythic elements than the score: silhouettes of ravens and doves were superimposed over iceland's cities and seascapes, as if the legendary birds of the edda still haunted the country.
there's no doubt odin's raven magic was impressive in scale and seriousness. but
instead of transcendent power, the effect was pedestrian and earthbound.
(tom service)
dotmusic
you often hear the invisible when you go to see sigur ros live. as the bowed white
noise fades into an eiree serenity or the slow-burning rage suddenly tears loose towards
a crashing climax, you fancy you can make out all sorts of peripheral extras. there's
an orchestra, soaring and sweeping with the firebrand emotions. there's a forty-piece
choir fleshing out the rise and fall of the melodies. and there, right over there,
just on the very edge of earshot, that's. . . something you've never imagined before.
tonight, there's no need for the mind's eye to add in dashes of light and shade and texture. as part of the barbican's only connect series, in which they invite "extraordinary" musicians to explore the "edgy, exciting and sometimes volatile nature of the creative process", sigur ros have collaborated with composer (and former psychic tv keyboard player) hilmar orn hilmarsson and "chanter" steindor anderson on music inspired by odin's raven magic, the lost chapter of the norse bible, the edda.
to aid them in this task, the icelanders are accompanied by the thirty strong london sinfonietta and nineteen members of a choir called the sixteen. there is also what looks like a long granite table in the middle of the stage. this turns out not to be a sacrificial altar, ready for when the seventy minute piece summons up odin from whatever netherworld he inhabits, but a marimba made from fifty four untreated stones. clearly, we have left the petty meanderings of post rock far far behind.
it starts with a beautifully mournful piece from the orchestra. sigur ros simply sit on their amps at the side of the stage and watch, but somehow their essence seems to inhabit the music, like radiation seeping into a previously fresh water supply. jonsi adds a touch of bowed guitar, conjuring up the low howl of the north wind as steindor anderson steps up to intone ancient icelandic rhymes and myths. there is a sense of stirring sadness, of history and loss.
it's a tribute to the strength of sigur ros' talent and vision that they are able to surrender themselves so totally to the collaborative process. there are no squalls of gradual noise tonight, no shifting glacial soundscapes just the parts that you imagine brought to life on their own. the group's chief contribution onstage is with the marimba. taking turns to huddle around it, like elves tinkering away while man ponders and sighs with the orchestration, they add tiny, gamalan-like melodies that seem bright and full of life.
to try and interpret how the music relates to the ancient lore is a fool's game of course. so here goes. the visuals, created by sigur ros, take in the obvious (ravens, at rest and in flight) and the intriguing (pylons, satellite tracking dishes), and this clash of nature and technology has a parallel with the almost apocalyptic feel of what's being played. this is music on the edge of darkness, made of clockwork and fire, a heartbeat away from nothing at all. when jonsi introduces a glitched electronica beat, it feels jarring and out of place, but it's soon overwhelmed by the warmth of the choir. tradition conquers progress.
there are moments when you let slip of time and go into a semi-trancelike state
when you see sigur ros live. that doesn't happen tonight. there is too much going
on, too much to keep the mind occupied and rooted in the here-and-now. in fact, there
are so many elements to take in that you feel you need to see this twice: once to
acclimatise and once to understand. from this performance, only one certainty arises.
no other modern group could ever dare to get away with something as audacious and
accomplished as this. and no other modern group would know where to start. sigur ros
are light years ahead.
(ian watson)
