Monday, July 28, 2008
I'm headed to Colombia for a very quick business trip, back in the wee hours of Thursday morning. More about that tomorrow. Today, like any Monday, belongs to music....
But Who's Watching Reykjavik?
Today's Song/Video of the Week is 'Gobbledigook,' a left-field treat from Iceland's second-most-famous music maker (after Björk), the four-man art-rock combo Sigur Rós. (My Mom and I visited that spendid country four years ago, pictures click here)'Ethereal', 'classical', 'minimalist,' and 'pretty' are four adjectives frequently used to describe the band's style. A three-minute single like 'Gobbledigook' is unusually short for Sigur, who prefer to take seven or eight minutes to fully flesh out a musical idea.
The band's artiness extends to their album covers (example, pictured left) and video clips (featured below). Other quirks: song and album titles in the complex Icelandic language, and, as if that weren't enough, sometimes they sing in a gibberish of their own invention they call 'vonlenska' which they translate as 'Hopelandic.'
Below is some of their album art. 'Who's watching Reykjavik?' is a joke that Sigur Ros is reported to have made when they joined with Björk to give a concert in Northern Iceland to protest building an aluminum plant powered by the island's geothermal steam. Since 35,000 people attended the concert, literally 15% of Iceland's population, the group was wondering if anyone was home minding the store : - )
And now, the high-quality video clip for Gobbledigook, featuring superb cinematography and some nudity.....
Here's another beautiful, cinematic video to a relatively short Sigur Ros song, 'Hoppipolla'..
Finally, a good picture of the band visiting one of Iceland's many volcanoes...
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