Ágætis byrjun

Labels

  • FatCat Records
  • Smekkleysa

Occupation

  • Drums: Ágúst Ævar Gunnarsson
  • Vocals, guitar: Jón Þór " Jónsi " Birgisson
  • Bass Georg " Goggi " Hólm
  • Keyboard: Kjartan " Kjarri " Sveinsson

Ágætis byrjun ( ' A pretty good start ') is the second album by the Icelandic band Sigur Rós. It first appeared in Iceland in June 1999 on the label Smekkleysa and in August 2000 on FatCat Records.

General

The songs are, as on most of the band's albums, but unlike the follow-up album (), almost entirely in Icelandic, the mother tongue of the band members singing (apart from Olsen Olsen, which in the process invented by the singer Jónsi language " Vonlenska " is sung ). It is also the first album with keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson and the same time the last one with the drummer Agust Gunnarsson, who left the band shortly after the end of the recordings.

The album title is a nod to how the band has reflected on their debut album By; this topic can also be found in the eponymous song.

Style and pieces

Unlike on the previous album From the style to Ágætis byrjun uniform and less experimental; on ambient pieces as they quite often occurred at her debut album, only the short, isolated embedded in the title Interludes was almost completely omitted (eg between Svefn -g- englar and Starálfur ) still remember it.

It is particularly striking that Jónsi on this album his guitar operated almost exclusively with the cello bow. This contributes considerably since then to the typical sound of Sigur Rós. Overall, the sound is much clearer and defined as From, on which he has failed conspicuously rough and reverberant.

In the songs now dominates the typical sound of Sigur Rós, but can be found in some of the songs also influences from other genres, such as jazz in Ný Batterí, jazz and blues hamast in Hjartað and Icelandic folk in Olsen Olsen.

The ten songs on the album are partly related to each other. The intro contains byrjun played backward parts of the title track Ágætis, the song Avalon contains instrumental passages from Starálfur, but slows down four times.

There the pieces were Ný Batterí, Svefn -g- englar and Viðrar vel til loftarasa released as singles. Except for the song Ný Batterí, emerged at the singles and videos. Svefn -g- englar was also part of the background music of the TV detective stories: "Tatort" ( episode 675 entitled: " Night Talk" ( from Cologne), 2007).

Title list with translations

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