Ágætis byrjun

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Ágætis byrjun
Ágætis byrjun cover
Studio album by Sigur Rós
Released June 1999
Recorded Summer 1998 through spring 1999
Genre Post-rock
Length 71:51
Label Fat Cat, Smekkleysa
Producer Ken Thomas
Professional reviews
Sigur Rós chronology
Von brigði
(1998)		 Ágætis byrjun
(1999)		 ( )
(2002)

Ágætis byrjun (Icelandic for An alright start) is the second album by the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós, which was released in 1999. Ágætis byrjun was recorded between the summer of 1998 to the spring of 1999 with producer Ken Thomas, and became Sigur Rós' breakthrough album, both critically and commercially. Ágætis byrjun represented a substantial departure from the band's previous album Von, with that album's Cocteau Twins-esque dream pop and extended ambient soundscapes replaced by Jónsi Birgisson's now signature cello-bowed guitarwork and lush orchestration (using a double string octet amongst other orchestral elements).

Contents

[edit] Release

While released to little fanfare, the album quickly gained radio exposure in Iceland, and spent the autumn of 1999 climbing the Icelandic album charts, finally resting at the top for a number of weeks. After surprising success in Iceland, the album subsequently gained strong international buzz with numerous articles in many prominent publications, hype from internet message boards and blogs, as well as often exuberant critical praise. Ágætis byrjun was released in the United Kingdom in 2000, and in the North American market in 2001 by Fat Cat Records. In 2001, Ágætis byrjun won the inaugural Shortlist Music Prize.

An acclaimed music video was made for "Viðrar vel til loftárása". The album's tracks has also been featured in soundtracks; "Starálfur" was used in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and "Svefn-g-englar" in Vanilla Sky, among others. The song "Flugufrelsarinn" has been arranged by Stephen Prustman for the Kronos Quartet, and is available on their iTunes-only release Kronos Quartet Plays Sigur Rós.

[edit] Structure

The ten songs on the album include some self-reference: the introduction contains backmasked parts from the title track, and the last song, "Avalon", consists of an instrumental passage from "Starálfur" slowed to one-fourth its original speed. The strings in "Starálfur" itself are palindromic; they are the same forwards and backwards. When a friend of the band heard the first song recorded for the album he called it "Ágætis byrjun" — "an alright start" in Icelandic.

Sigur Rós assembled and glued together the cases of the first print of Ágætis byrjun themselves. This resulted in many of the CDs being unusable due to glue stains on them. The sketch on the cover of Ágætis byrjun was drawn by Gotti Bernhöft with a Bic Cristal ballpoint pen.

All vocals are sung in Icelandic, except for those on "Olsen Olsen", which are sung in the gibberish language Vonlenska. Sigur Rós' subsequent album, ( ), used Vonlenska exclusively for its vocals.

[edit] Track listing

English translations of Icelandic song names are given in brackets.

  1. "Intro"[1] – 1:36
  2. "Svefn-g-englar" [Sleepwalkers] – 10:04
  3. "Starálfur" [Staring Elf] – 6:47
  4. "Flugufrelsarinn" [The Fly Freer] – 7:47
  5. "Ný batterí" [New Batteries] – 8:11
  6. "Hjartað hamast (bamm bamm bamm)" [The Heart Pounds (Boom Boom Boom)] – 7:11
  7. "Viðrar vel til loftárása" [Good Weather for Airstrikes] – 10:18
  8. "Olsen Olsen" – 8:03
  9. "Ágætis byrjun" [An Alright Start] – 7:56
  10. "Avalon" – 4:00

[edit] Contributors

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ The album's packaging leaves the first track untitled, though the band's website gives the piece the name "Intro". It has also been labeled by the band as "Nujryb Siteaga" ("Ágætis byrjun" backwards).

[edit] External links

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Sigur Rós
Jón Þór Birgisson · Georg Hólm · Kjartan Sveinsson · Orri Páll Dýrason
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