Sigur Ros - Von
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CD Details
Artist: Sigur RosEdition: Music CD
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 2004-10-26
Music Label: Smekkleysa Records/Ka
Soundtracks:
- Sigur Rós
- Dögun
- Hún Jörð...
- Leit Að LÃfi
- Myrkur
- 18 Sekúndur Fyrir Sólarupprás
- Hafssól
- Veröld Ný Og �ð
- Von
- Mistur
- Syndir Guðs (Opinberun Frelsarans)
- Rukrym
Music reviews of Von
Music Review: A gloomy synthesis of rock, ambience, and electronic experimentation
Rating: 5 Stars
As a huge fan of 1960s-1970s European psychedelic and progressive rock, "Berlin School" electronica, and American minimalism, I was delighted with this 1997 debut from Icelanders Sigur Ros. Stylistically, this album fuses elements of electronica, minimalism, the European avant-garde, and ambient styles (especially Brian Eno) with rock, and exhibits a level of studio wizardry that is vaguely reminiscent of psychedelic rock groups such as Pink Floyd during the 1967-1969 period.
The overall mood of Von is windswept and grey, haunting, and at times, pretty creepy. A good example of the creepiness is provided by the heavily echoed "screams from outer space" on the 9'46" opening track (Sigur Ros), briefly at the end of Hun Jord, and on Syndir Guos. Interestingly, those screams made the hairs stand on the back of my neck just as readily as the bloodcurdling screams on "Careful with that Axe Eugene" (Pink Floyd, 1968). There are gloomy, brooding vocal parts scattered throughout the recording, although they do not comprise a large part of the compositions. Interestingly, the lyrics were written in a fabricated language called "Hopelandic" - the French band Magma (chamber progressive) did something similar in the early-mid 1970s in a language called "Kobaian".
It is worth noting that the heavy opening of Hun Jord (complete with distorted guitar played at a crushing volume), the beautifully sad Myrkur, the title track Von, and Syndir Guos, in addition to the last few minutes of the final track Aukrym (albeit with backwards recorded parts) are the only pieces that resemble "songs", and for the most part, the pieces are instrumental and very lengthy. Although there are breaks here and there, musical themes are restated at various points throughout the album, creating a single larger work.
Instrumentation is somewhat sparse, and electronic experimentation conducted primarily on synthesizers (possibly guitar synthesizers as well) dominate the aural landscape. Brief passages of electric guitar (heavily distorted in addition to clean tones) and acoustic guitar are present during the conventional "songs", in addition to bass guitar, drums, and very interesting percussion parts.
In contrast to a lot of ambient recordings, which exhibit only extremely subtle permutations in musical themes within a given piece, Von is sprinkled with variations in tone and timbre, and displays use of both experimental and found sounds. This variability, coupled with the combination of vocal and experimental passages, in addition to the stark dynamic contrasts between the spacier passages and the heavy, "rocking" sections makes Von a very interesting recording.
This debut album is recommended to those people that don't mind experimental approaches to rock music and are not put off by the absence of traditional song structure. In fact, I highly recommend this album to fellow progheads that are desperately looking for excellent music in the current prog scene.
Further discussion of the band is provided on the Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock website - unfortunately it has not been updated. However, the Prog Archives website provides a complete discography with reviews and should serve as a good starting point.
Description of Von
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