Maarts' Top 50 Albums Of 2005

1. Sigur Ros- Takk



To try to describe this album without constantly using superlatives is difficult. Trying to describe what it feels listening like it without using all sorts of woolly metaphors is damn near impossible.

This is not been made easy by the nature of the band and their music; a large, Icelandic collective taking a folksian approach to the post-rock genre and blessed with a lead singer using a made-up language in a voice that somewhere holds fort inbetween cooing, mewling and crooning. Within Sigur Ros's concept it is but an ingredient, important that it is and it definitely sets them off from many other post-rock outfits. The Icelanders have from the beginning set out not only to build up songs in the tradition of bands in that ugly named genre but envelop their listener in a natural environment of brass and strings, deterring from every song ending in an orgasmic event but looking more for a longer lasting feeling of excitement. Their dark fledgling debut album Von showed a veiled promise but did not convince but the band moved on, producing the stunningly beautiful and organic Agaetis Byrjun, the more stifling and dark ( ) to this album- a richly detailed experience using all of the musical elements used on those two latter albums.

It is the details that makes this album so great. Listen to it on headphones and go beyond the guitars and keyboards dominating the soundscape. At times it's like watching plankton underwater through the sun streaming through the water as clocks, glockenspiel, loops, echoes, footsteps and Jonsi's whalesong enter in the view and leave as sudden as appearing. All songs are carefully crafted from beginning to end- no sudden ends or disappointing fade outs. It is a real finished product.

Finally the songs themselves- do they match up with their best? They easily hold their own although they're not likely to write any more songs like Svefn-G-Englar but then again, you only have one shot at making a first lasting impression, maintaining it is where the real challenge lies.

Takk succeeds on that front. Opening with the short and shimmering title track, then getting straight into Glosoli and Hoppipolla, the closest thing Sigur Ros get to rock. Meo Blodnasir pulls the Hoppipolli-tune back in a reverbed way, like the Stone Roses did on Don't Stop. Se Lest has a lullaby-like charm, due to glockenspiel, piano and metallophon teaming up before taken over by a little oompah-brassband. If that was sweet, juxtaposing it is Saeglopur, the heaviest the band has ever sounded. Milano has a pianoriff Coldplay's Chris Martin would die for, supported by some great creepy violin-background and culminating in a Jonsi-cri de coeur that is heavenly. Gong with it's jazzy brushed percussion is almost the most straightforwardest of popsongs and illustrates the instrument-like quality of Jonsi's vocals which sound more like a solo-instrument than a true vocal, searching high and low to add the melodic counterpoints to the busy guitars and keyboards. My personal favourite is Andvari, a simple guitarriff drifting off into the ocean with a little string quartet playing the most gorgeous and simplest of melodies. It breaks my heart, hearing the longish fade out, like the leaving of a loved one or the waves of the ocean returning back to the sea.

Svo Hljott is an equally slow moodpiece, build on the feedback of the guitar, My Bloody Valentine-style before dissipating with a beautifully crafted piano-looped piece-as I said, all songs have lovingly constructed beginnings and ends. Final chord Heysatan with its meandering brassband walking under the streetlights bring this remarkable album to an end.

Ever since its release Takk has been a steady companion in my player, revealing more of its colours with every listen. Oh fuck it, I've said it at the beginning, it's impossible to describe it without woolly metaphors; listening to Takk is like diving in the ocean, the sunrays piercing the deep blue and the feeling of weightlessness with the splendiforous views underwater taking your breath away. Album of the year by a mile and then some.