Sigur Rós -- Ágætis byrjun

10/10

The request show guy tapped me on the arm as I walked out the DJ booth and said, "Hey, man, you should listen tonight. We're actually going to play something good." During my four years of college radio DJ'ing, my block was followed by some pretty eclectic programs, but none like "The Request Show" in the fall of 2002. These guys were out there. The entire basis of their show was to blatantly not play songs that callers requested. Instead, they played their own requests, or mine as I passed them coming in.
I followed their advice that night, but wasn't too impressed by the first 20 or so minutes of music. "I mean, this is good," I said to myself on my drive home in reference to whatever Damien Jurado song they were playing, "but not GOOD."
Then Barrett Black, half of the Request Show duo, said, "Okay, earlier tonight we said we'd play something good. But this is really, really good." Barrett Black is a friend to this day, though I only see him about once a year. This and the next two reviews are extremely interconnected, and Barrett is going to come up again. Anyway, Barrett muted his mic, pressed play, and for the next eight minutes and nine seconds, I said, not to myself, but quite loudly, "This isn't good, this is incredible!" The strange alien atmosphere and buildup, and those vocals, and those sounds, and that power. It blew my mind.
Then, I got out of my car, realized I hadn't caught the name of the band, had no English lyrics to use as a search reference, had a busy week, and promptly forgot the experience.
About seven months later, the song emerged in my head, fully formed, I couldn't get it out, and I went on a mad search to find out who created it. I don't know what kind of early 00's google-magic I worked to get to Sigur Rós, but it must have been intense. It was also inconclusive. One fateful Sunday in May of 2003, I found myself wandering into Best Buy, finding one CD by Sigur Rós, and hoping I had found the right band. Turns out, I had...but it was the wrong album...
I'll get to that part of the story in the next review, but after listening to that particular Sigur Rós album on a non-stop loop for about a month, I knew that I must have another one...maybe the one that actually contained that song I'd heard.
Thankfully, at the time, you could only walk into a store and buy one other Sigur Rós album than the one I had. I finally found it, Ágætis byrjun, and behold, it actually had the song I was looking for. That song is "Ný batterí," and fifteen years later, it is still one of my favorite songs.

Those expectant horns to start the song, like coming out of some universal glacial fog, then those alien noises start bleeding in, and the bassline takes over, thick and insistent, horns supporting, and there's a voice. It isn't a human voice, it isn't a man or a woman's voice, it's the sound of an elf from some higher society, high and whispery, and strangely powerful, singing in a language never before spoken, and then the drums come in, cymbals sounding weathered by ancient, long-forgotten hurricanes. Then it's just the horns and some ancient cranking noise for a solitary moment before this power surges forward, some unknown and infinite, unstoppable sound. Really, I've been listening to this for seven minutes already? How is this possible? It just started! A final minute of the horns and kick, snare and cymbal plays the song out into the ether.
I'm not sure how any album could appear interesting in comparison to "Ný batterí," but Ágætis byrjun is a singular work--one of three singular works I believe Sigur Rós have to their name. The music is just as beautiful, alien, and unexpected, though "Ný batterí" is the peak for me.
"Ný batterí" comes directly in the album's middle, and the rest of Ágætis byrjun seems to deliberate in its fallout, first in tension, and then with increasingly comforting sounds, led more by fluid bass guitar than any of Sigur Rós' future albums.
Indeed, despite its very alien nature, illustrated by its very alien album artwork, Ágætis byrjun envelops the listener in such comforting feelings of home and community in its final minutes that I concluded the family-centric short film I created for my documentary filmmaking class fall semester of '03 with track eight, "Olsen Olsen." I got an A+. Thanks, Sigur Rós.
It's also worth noting, a student in 2018 can make a far higher-quality video than this in 30-minutes on their iPhone. We are in the future.

1999 FatCat Records
1. Intro 1:36
2. Svefn-g-englar 10:03
3. Starálfur 6:45
4. Flugufrelsarinn 7:47
5. Ný batterí 8:09
6. Hjartað hamast (bamm bamm bamm) 7:09
7. Viðrar vel til loftárása 10:16
8. Olsen Olsen 8:02
9. Ágætis byrjun 7:55
10. Avalon 4:01