Sigur Ros will return with their sixth studio album, Valtari, on XL Recordings on May 29, 2012. The first track from Valtari, entitled "Ekki Múkk," is now streaming on the band's website – http://www.sigurros.com. Valtari will be released on double LP, CD and digital download. Valtari is Sigur Ros's first studio album since 2008, marking the end of their indefinite hiatus. It is either the album they always wanted to make, or the album they almost didn’t make, depending on how you look at it.
Taken together, the eight songs on this 54-minute album feel like an alternative musical path the band didn't take after 2002's untitled ( ) album. Frequently bereft of formal structures, and for large stretches of time more atmospheres than songs, the work – which the band has described as sounding "like an avalanche in slow motion" – offers a counterpoint to Sigur Ros's steady yet unconscious migration towards public acceptance.
In English, Valtari translates as "steamroller," and there is something right about the title in terms of the process of its creation. In 2011, the band, alongside mixer Alex Somers, started the painstaking forensic task of piecing together a cohesive and magical work from disparate constituent parts. If this sounds unromantic, the results are anything but. While Valtari is a more "studio based" album than any of its predecessors (which usually start life as rehearsal room jams), the long hours of experimentation and unsentimental editing have yielded incredible results.
Sigur Ros are: Jón Þór Birgisson (vocals, guitar), Georg Holm (bass), Kjartan Sveinsson (keyboards/piano), Orri Páll Dýrason (drums). Valtari was recorded by the band at Sundlaugin Studio, Mosfellbaer, Iceland.
"i really can’t remember why we started this record, i no longer know what we were trying to do back then. i do know session after session went pear-shaped, we lost focus and almost gave up...did give up for a while. but then something happened and form started to emerge, and now i can honestly say that it’s the only sigur rós record i have listened to for pleasure in my own house after we’ve finished it."
Stoked.
_________________ absinthe makes the heart grow fonder And so it goes...
Don't know if I'm more excited for the album or the prospect of some American tour dates. But either way
_________________ "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." -- John Steinbeck
OK. Gotta be honest. This is going to take some time to fully grow on me. I mean, it's lovely and atmospheric, but there's very, very little structure at all.
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