Dream Journal: the Jonsi Daisy Chain

Last night I dreamed I went to a Jonsi concert with my friend Tristan Shutt.  It was a typical venue but something seemed a little "off". The first thing we saw that was out of the ordinary was the seating. Very organized rows of office chairs directly in front of the stage instead of the floor area crowded with the hardcore fans (where we would have been). Tristan sought out and found a choice seat on the end of a row very close to the stage. So close that I worried the volume of the music so close would make my ears ring for the next month. Then I thought, not for the first time, "well, it's a Jonsi show and will be worth it".

The stage was fairly large, lined with lights that stretched all the way round. When they slowly came up, accompanied by the "overture" music, a long line of leprechauns hopped, skipped and ran from left to right in front of us. Small leprechauns, much smaller than midgets. Obviously part of the show, or so we figured because next thing you know there are "normal sized" people following them, trotting merrily, laughing. The line just kept on going round and then we realized that the leprechauns had been joined by people in the audience, who would randomly jump up and join the chain.

I turned to Tristan to see if he had caught on. Of course he had and to my surprise he jumped up himself and joined the fray.

So I'm sitting there, seeing all this craziness unfold around me, the whole place just filled with laughter and childish fun. I'm not the only one still sitting but the number of abstainers was dwindling. I thought, "that looks like so much fun, but I can't do that. It's just not 'me'. I'd look like a fool." So I watched, amused.

Then I had that thought again..."well, it's a Jonsi show. It will be worth it." And "worth what? The embarrassment  Everyone else is doing it, who is there to be embarrassed for?" It was with a great degree of surprise when I found myself actually considering doing it. But I held back and stood my ground.

For about thirty seconds...

I couldn't help it. It was actually like pushing down a wall to get to the other side, still convinced that I was doing the wrong thing, maybe that I'd regret it. But all these people were hopping and skipping...Tristan was out there with them...I basically said "what the hell", got up and started running in the circle, leaning to the left like I was taking a sharp turn on a Harley.

I laughed like a fool. Like a madman! So much so that I was seriously hoping noone would think I actually was crazy. I laughed so hard that I cried in the mix. I don't think I've laughed so hard since listening to a Richard Pryor record when I was in high school. Or maybe in an elevated situation with a close circle of friends back in the early 90s. No, running around those ordered office chairs in the theater was the most fun thing I'd ever done, I'd never laughed so hard in my life.

I was still whooping it up in the dream when I woke up. Sometimes when I'm really frightened at the end of a dream I will make grunting/groaning noises before I wake up. After this dream I was sure I'd come out laughing. But as it turned out I didn't make a sound (according to the reliable testimony of my wife). I was quite surprised I didn't because, as I've said, my inhibitions, fortified as they are, were shed like dirty clothes at the end of the day.

The crazy thing is that Jonsi never took the stage in my dream. If that daisy chain had lasted a couple hours I would not have even cared (much as I love Jonsi). Then again I don't think I could have lasted even another hour doing that crazy locomotion before fatally busting a gut.

What does it mean? What would Carl Jung say? Maybe Sigmund Freud could cast some illumination on what surely must been a revelation directly from the deepest well of my subconscious? Or is it something much simpler than that? Something that even someone who doesn't know me could figure out and explain based on nothing more than what I've written here? Then again there is always the probability that it means absolutely nothing. Just a great, fun dream, a treat from the psyche, unused to such frolics.

Of course the last explanation is the logical one. No one likes to realize he's a fuddy duddy who may not even know how to have fun anymore. This dream practically screams "THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO!!!" but I'll ignore it and just "stay in my seat". Like my butt is glued to it. Like my shoes are nailed to the floor and I can't reach them because my back is super-glued to the chair as well. I've been in this unenviable position for so long that I have no idea who put me there or why, only that time has convinced me that I'll never break free, never melt the glue or pry the nails from the ground. And that, my friends, is depression. So a dream like this is not so much a reminder of "what could be" (it never could) as it is "what once was", even if that was long, long ago as a little child playing "ring around the rosey" and whirling around in a daisy chain.

Then of course it could just be symbolic of the joy we'll enter into once we give up our bodies, tied to this paradigm/reality/experience as we all are. If such is the case, all I can say is that all the pain and suffering we've been burdened with in our lifetimes will have been worth it all. If this freedom from inhibition is the normal state of mind in "Heaven" indeed we have much to look forward to and nothing to fear in death.

That's the "dream interpretation" I'd prefer. But it's the "fuddy-duddy" one I'm tempted to believe.

Sigur Ros: "Valtari"

I remember when Sigur Ros' last studio album came out. I debated long and hard whether I should listen to the full-length stream of "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" or wait another week until the official release. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I spent considerable time with the low-quality stream. I recall being hesitant at first because the record was so much different from it's successor, "Takk".

"Takk" is, in my humble opinion, probably the best record ever made. Sounds like lunatic hyperbole, doesn't it? I don't expect anyone to jump on the bandwagon...Even now I can hear the choruses of "are you crazy?" So be it. There's a spirit about their 4th album that moves me every single time I hear it (and trust me I've listened to it countless times). There's not a single moment on the entire album that fails to impress. It flows seamlessly from song to song, an hour passes and you wonder where it went off to. Even so, the songs stand on their own every bit as successfully. It's easy to get lost in "Takk". It's epic. There's not an album like it. There will never be another album like it.

So why did so many people expect "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" to be anything like "Takk" or any of their other records, for that matter? Why were so many disappointed? To my credit it didn't take long for me to integrate this observation into my expectations of the music. Okay, so getting used to the first single, "Gobbledigook", was a whole 'nother story, but I won't go into that, other than to say that I still sort of have to mentally disengage that song from the rest of the album before I can appreciate it totally.

I confess I didn't quite "get" "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" on the first few tries either. A couple of songs really stood out for me initially. "Gódan daginn" and the title track, for instance, sounded like exactly what I believed Sigur Ros should sound like. "Ára bátur" showed a lot of promise, but I figured it would take some time to find the right state of mind to appreciate it fully. "All Alright" is such a fragile song that it's hard to listen to even after all this time, though I've toughened up my Inner Child since then to the point where I can actually hear without feeling too unfomfortable. "Inní mér syngur vitleysingur" and "Vid spilum endalaust" were so far out of the expected mold that I thought for sure I wouldn't cotton to them. But guess what? They are a couple of my favorite Sigur Ros tracks now! I don't know how many other people who bought the record and felt let down eventually came around, but I can honestly say that "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" is right up there with "Takk" on my list of best Sigur Ros albums.

It's been three years since all that...three years with Sigur Ros on "hiatus" while Jonsi donned a bird outfit, wrote a slew of really good pop songs and toured the world with a show that was a real life-changing experience...though I wouldn't know that personally, since I was unable to arrange a trip to Laurence, Kansas. My life remains, at least in that aspect, unchanged. Jonsi was relatively "everywhere" last year, from a television ad (???????), a slew of talk shows, even composing the complete score for "We Bought a Zoo". Seeing as how 99% of all Sigur Ros fans love Jonsi and are on board with practically everything he does, one could be forgiven for suspecting a distinct possibility that the next Sigur Ros album ("please, Lord, let there BE a 'next' Sigur Ros album") might just contain some pop elements. After all, there were indeed a few songs he was playing that could well have been proper Sigur Ros numbers ("Tornado" & "Grow Till Tall", for instance).

Three years gone. Prayers are answered. And no, there will be no "Takk" sequel. Not even a ""Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" " sequel. No "( )" sequel and no "Ágætis byrjun" sequel. Nothing that bears any resemblance whatsoever to Jonsi's "Go" stuff. Instead...

"Valtari". Not since "Von" has there been a Sigur Ros album so challenging, so demanding of your complete and total attention. If I may speak only for myself, it's a DIFFICULT album. Perhaps some of the difficulty is the afore-mentioned process of trying to seperate "Sigur Ros A" from "Sigur Ros B". But it's hard because you really do have to LISTEN to get the desired effected. You can't hit the "play" button, settle back and read a good book. Not to say that a couple of the songs in the second half don't make beautiful ambient music. They certainly do. But unless you're concentrating on the sounds as they come out of the air, following without trying to comprehend them, you won't get pulled quite as deep into the experience.

I've read a few reviews of the record and for the most part I don't think they've given it the credit it deserves.  That's not to say that the opinions haven't been favorable. I guess 3 1/2 out of 5 stars in Rolling Stone is nothing to scoff at, seeing as how a lot of REALLY good albums pull "only" 3. Spin gives "Valtari" 7 out of 10, which seems more realistic but their website doesn't show the actual review so I don't know what their writer is judging. Pitchfork has even less love, with only a 6.1. Even so, such rankings are nothing to be ashamed of. Still I don't think the disc has been received in the way it should have been.

And this is why...

I saw a reviewer on YouTube give his take on the album. Somewhere lost in the typical "record review jargon" the reviewer was spurting he said, and to paraphrase only slightly, "'Valtari' isn't my favorite album in Sigur Ros' catalog"... I thought, "Dude! The record just came out two weeks ago!" The guy struck me as being a fan and since he spoke in terms of "favorites" I assumed that he had the band's other discs ranked in some semblance of preference. Who knows, maybe his initial instincts will serve him faithfully and it won't become an album that, in his opinion, won't hold it's own with their earlier work.

But, and I've probably said it here already, "Valtari" is not the kind of record you're going to "get" in just a few listens. Though it may not be apparent to many who primarily listen to "popular music", "Valtari" holds a lot in common with modern symphonic music. I can't describe exactly what I mean by that, only to say that the more you listen, the DEEPER you listen, the more you appreciate (ugh! I KNOW I've already said that more than once!!!). Take a symphony by Gustav Mahler. The second one, for instance, aka "Resurrection". It's length is staggering. It violently pulls you into it's world with one of it's primary motifs. Then you practically drown in all the different melodies, textures, etc. until by the end of the piece you're not really sure exactly what you've been through. But you know that there's something, some "things" you've missed. Pieces of a puzzle which, when put together, will make the the artistic vision a bit clearer and the listening experience more fulfilling. With Mahler (and practically all classical music in general) there are a LOT of puzzle pieces. And it's not so much that the pieces "complete" the symphony. You'll eventually learn that the symphony can NEVER be complete. Because it's dependent upon the listener to determine HOW the puzzle pieces fit together. It's an interactive process in which the brain is given free reign to assemble and dissemble sounds and melodies at it's pleasure, at it's whim even. It cannot be complete, but the more you listen the more you are familiar with the possibilities, having noticed or used them before in some combination or another.

This is how I listen to "Valtari". It's no less challenging, in it's way, than Mahler's second. Ian Cohen, in Pitchfork's review, speaks of the album as "leaving you to fashion highlights out of relativity". Maybe I'm just looking for something different in the music I generally listen to but WOW that sounds like it would be AWESOME!!! Isn't that what postmodernism is all about? He describes the music as "work, a trudge, asking for too much by way of demanding nothing concrete." This demand, he feels, is "due to Sigur Ros' unwillingness to exert any sort of artistic will on the listener".

Mr. Cohen, I can understand how you might feel that way, though the assertion that the band is artistically lazy gets under my skin. And I won't insist that "Valtari" is a "maximalist version of  "( )'", even though you think we hardcore Sigur Ros fans might use it as an excuse. I'm surprised you compare it to "( )" after all. Not that you're the only one, but I suppose it's difficult/impossible to find a point of comparison for something like "Valtari" in the entire SR catalog.

There IS NO point of comparison. Listening to "Valtari" IS work, though I would add that it's only a "trudge" for those who think they've already got a firm grip on what this band is all about. Which is not meant to suggest that they haven't crafted a recognizable style and sound in the past. I only mean that if you think you're going to pigeonhole them and put them in a box, you'll be confused when they fly out and you probably won't recognize them anymore. That's the point when you'll have to decide if it's the band you're running with or just the songs. Not to say that it's a bad thing to be "all about the songs". But that's something that hardcore fans of Sigur Ros, and most other bands as well, have gone beyond.

It's at that point when people will say to you, "Oh, well, you'll just like anything that band does, whether it's good or not". On one point that is a correct assessment. Yes, I admit I will like anything Sigur Ros does. They'll put out an album that sounds like death metal cum  Partridge Family and I will listen so hard and so deep and with such respect for what they are capable of that, yes, I'll likely find a lot that appeals to me, even in a record like that!  

Okay, so...the reason I'm writing all this is because a friend of mine asked me to. Well, that's  not quite true...he asked me what I thought of the album. There's no false humility in claiming that my opinion was especially important to him. I was the one who introduced Sigur Ros to him. He happened to be one of the lucky ones who walked into the store while I was playing "Aegetis Byrjun" on the stereo. He fell in love with the band there and then and has since seen them several times (a fact which has never failed to rankle me, as I've only seen them twice). Since then he's asked for my take on every new Sigur Ros album that's come around the bend. He said he was slightly underwhelmed with "Valtari". Or at least his first impressions weren't as favorable as they had been with previous records.

Of the "Sigur-Ros-Can-Do-No-Wrong" fan type, I had the primal urge to defend it...even though I was somewhat underwhelmed myself. That's where all this "give it a few listens before you judge" comes from, I'm sure.  I've said it, I've repeated it, I've implied it...the plea "don't give up on it so quickly" is all I can offer, but I think it's valid. I believe this album will reveal itself slowly, as the band members themselves have said.

Having been almost a month now since hearing the LP in it's entirety, the question is "Well? How did it hold up for you? Was it worth the time and effort to sit through the whole thing as many times as you have?"

Yes, it has. Although I don't think I've even broken the surface of what it has to offer I have nevertheless found myself in a place where I'm comfortable and, how should I say it? Prepared for where it will lead through the days to come. At first it sounded almost unfinished. Now I can appreciate a sense of sparseness for the sounds to float within, seldom anchored by gravity. There are still a couple of things about the record that disappoint. The mixing/production quality on "Varúð" is, to my ears, atrocious. It is possible that Alex Somers & the band did this on purpose, but this detracts significantly from the song, IMO. There are other places that the production could be, once again IMO, improved. Nothing that would completely ruin the overall experience, though. Also it just doesn't feel right to me for the last three songs to be completely devoid of  a "proper" vocal part. "Proper" as opposed to the voice being used as an effect, which is all very nice, but one primary reason I love Sigur Ros is Jonsi's voice so I was kind of hoping it would put in at least one more appearance before the album's finish.

As for the individual songs... "Valtari" rises out of the mist with a song that translates as "I Breathe". "Ég anda" sounds like a house filled with ghosts. Disembodied voices floating in a large, dark room. I don't usually think of music in terms of "thought pictures" (for lack of a better term), but I can't help but envision these wraiths trapped in time and space, for some reason tethered to the world, unable to slink into eternity where they belong. The lead vocal comes in and I imagine it's an incantation chanted over the spirits, a spell to melt the cord and usher them from a prison they've almost grown used to. "Ég anda" is one of three songs that I immediately enjoyed, that only took a couple of listens before they hit.

"Ekki Múkk" is one of the three, though it had a head start, being the first song to leak from the album. As with it's predecessor, "Ekki Múkk" rises up from silence with an eerie feel. There is a similarity, for me at least, to the material on Jonsi and Alex's "Riceboy Sleeps" album, which is perfectly fine with me, since that one has grown on me to a marvelous degree since it's release. The "ace in the hole" for this song are the chilling string arrangements from Amina. Jonsi shows off his ability to hold a musical note until cows come home. Such an awesome song, I don't know that I'll cotton to any of the others as I have this one.

There's really not much to the next track, "Varúð", other than a nice three note chorus from what sounds like a boys choir. It builds and builds and builds but inevitably reaches an anti-climax. I keep expecting Orri to kick into a heavy duty full drum assault but all I get is the pounding of what sounds like a tribal war drum. Nothing wrong with war drums and the such...I hear them more as "build up" and not "climax" (haha). Its not the main reason I'm ultimately dissatisfied with the song, which is the production. Since I've already commented on it I will move on..

Next up is the other song that I immediately loved. A truly beautiful piece of music, "Rembihnútur" spends it's initial half gathering up the sounds and snatches of melody that will eventually dominate the song. Jonsi sings a soft lullaby and then it all erupts into one of the most beautiful melodies I've ever heard from him. The harmonies and multi-tracking only sweeten the sound. Maybe it is those harmonies that remind me, for some inconceivable reason, of the Beach Boys, with their tight vocal interaction. I felt the same way about "Hoppípolla" when I first heard it. Once again, I have no idea why I make the mental connection, as I am not not a fan of the Beach Boys. I do, however, acknowledge the awesome quality of their combined voices.

I don't have the vinyl version of "Valtari" (as I have not owned a turntable in decades), but it's easy for me to hear the dividing line of side A and side B on the CD. As such I have had a difficult time getting past "side A". That's not to say that the last four songs are inferior to the first in any way. Still, I feel kind of drained by the time I get to "Dauðalogn", which is not a good thing seeing as how powerful the song is. It doesn't help either that I can't shake a melodic resemblance to "All Alright" that makes me suspect lazy recycling. I know Sigur Ros has far too much integrity to have ever done something like that so I have done my best to separate the lines and have paid more attention to the expressive qualities of the vocal. Using this approach it's easy for me to hear "Dauðalogn" as one of their best songs, able to hold it's own with just about anything they've done.

Before the album came out the band licensed the CW Network show "Vampire Diaries" a portion of "Dauðalogn". It was used in a scene where a two people are seen in a car underwater, having obviously just crashed into it. There are long shots of a woman, bubbles slowly exiting mouth and nose, sitting resigned to her fate with a look in her eye that is chilling. And there in the background is Jonsi singing, Icelandic or glossolia God only knows, and it just goes so well with the images I can't help but be impressed. I watched that and I kept repeating to myself, "DON'T think of this every time you hear the song!" I hate to have a video producer's vision provide the soundtrack to any song I listen to. But it's been hard to keep from it. The fact that it's a CW show makes it even worse. But what's done is done. I've found a way to mentally evict the offensive elements while still keeping the elegiac sense that was so awesome in the juxtaposition of song and drama.

"Varðeldur", one of the last three tracks, all basically instrumental, sounds to me like little more than a lengthy epilogue of it's predecessor. It took a few spins of the entire CD before I realized that's not what it actually is. On it's own merits the song is just this side of ambient, something you'd find on a Brian Eno album. The same holds true of "Valtari", the album's namesake which translates into "Steam Roller". Not exactly "steam roller" as you'd expect with a metal album, still there does seem to be a slow, lumbering motion that gives the unlikely title credibility.

Bringing it all back home is an experimental number called "Fjögur píanó". "Four Pianos". The idea of the song was for each individual musician to play an uncomplicated piano part to a simple loop. None of them would be in the same room at the same time and none would hear the parts that were played by each other. When the four completed this process they mixed the parts together and the result is "Fjögur píanó". Knowing that gives a much deeper appreciation to what they've attempted with the experiment. I could go into my whole spiritual mumbo jumbo about the source of inspiration and how it might work itself out in a situation like this but I'll spare you. Suffice to say it's a very enjoyable number and a successful outcome for the test. The pianos fade into a last spill of ambiance that eases the listener out of "Valtari" back into the mists from which it came.

And there it goes. Like the snake eating it's own tail, drawing you, beckoning you to play it again. To travel full circle again, finding bits and pieces of sonic bliss you missed the last time around. Worth the trip. Yes, I say it's well worth the round trip.

Jonsi: "Gathering Stories" (music video)

Something that will not change from the typical routine of the old Listening Room: I will always post videos from and about Sigur Ros & Jonsi. In fact, I'll probably re-post all the ones I have there, scattered throughout, when I don't have anything else to say or share. Which means that there will likely be a LOT of Sigur Ros/Jonsi videos coming your way. This song is from Jonsi's soundtrack to Cameron Crowe's film "We Bought a Zoo". I have seen the movie and it is very good. I highly recommend it, as I have with every other Crowe project. He's just unstoppable. He wrote the screenplay for "We Bought a Zoo" around Jonsi's music, and that's pretty cool except that it seemed as if most of the score was chopped up into pieces. You know how they do...it's almost like they feel like they don't have time to include a whole song, or the whole song is too long to fit the scene, so they rip out a verse or cut a chorus in half or just use the introduction or what have you. I can't stand it, especially with songs that I really like. But what can you do? What I guess I'm trying to get to is that this particular track is probably the best of the material from the score (as opposed to previously recorded songs dropped into the film at strategic points). In fact, I like as much as anything on his solo album, "Go". The same cannot be said of the video. There's just not much to it, as far as I can see. Amateurish, almost...but hey, that's the opinion of a 49 year old man who is many, many years to the north of Jonsi's typical audience's age. I'm sure I'm out of touch and that these visuals are more ascetically pleasing to them. But whatever. Watch it or close your eyes, the important thing is the song, and it is worth hearing: