Sigur Rós - Takk...
10/10
Ah, 2005. The most epic, eventful year of my life, and it's all documented here, on The Nicsperiment. Sure, there were dark times, but those just made the journey all the more rewarding. I have to admit, I've had a hard time getting up for this review. I could just do a short blurb, where I talk about how Takk... signifies the moment Sigur Rós take their alien, forlorn sound, and transfer it to the masses; that their previous two albums sound like songs from heaven, and this album is the sound of heaven coming to earth. Opener, "Glósóli," is like an epic, ice-thawing march through golden skies. "Hoppípolla" is like dancing around in the puddles. How fitting, considering the literal translation of "Hoppípolla"is "hopping into puddles." "Sé lest" is here with a glockenspiel and strings and crashing cymbals and beautiful singing to hint that maybe humans made this music, but probably not. Also, I've always thought it sounds like vocalist, Jónsi Birgisson, is singing the phrase "a blue canoe" over and over again, but turns out he is just singing in Icelandic. The song's climax breaks out in a festive outburst of horns that brings to mind some brightly painted Scandinavian harbor. Then, suddenly, there's the sound of winding clocks and machinery, leading directly into the epic "Sæglópur," and like Beetlejuice, now that I've said the word "epic" three times, it's time to get personal.
2005 began two weeks after I started college. My only immediately plans at the time were to crawfish for my father (I'd moved back home) during the spring season (essentially from the start of the year to mid-May), and to visit my good friend, Robker, in Germany for ten days in February. The rest of my calendar was...open. I spent that spring crawfishing, watching art films and the British The Office DVD's I checked out from the library, eating a three course meal of fried chicken, kool-aid, and Mardi Gras Ice Cream, visiting friends I'd made in college, watching the second season of Deadwood live and waiting for them to use Iron and Wine's "Lions Mane" as a closing song (why didn't they do that, it would have fit perfectly!), driving to Texas for a friend's wedding, going to Plano, Texas with The Rabbit to pick up a car he bought on Ebay (maybe don't by a car on Ebay), eating a five pound pizza, painting my parents' house alone while drinking a bottle of champagne and reading Hemingway, going to Houston for a friends' wedding, playing Resident Evil IV, watching old movies with my dad, and of course, as my first ever (and quite raw around the edges) travelogue recounts, going to Germany for ten days. Everything felt so huge and larger than life, but it wasn't sustainable. My mom repeatedly asked when I was moving out, the specter of crawfish season ending and my future unemployment loomed, and the distance I had begun putting between myself and the cult I grew up in was growing to the extent that I would have to actually leave it. Just before summer dawned, as all of these cows came to pasture (I like that better than chickens roosting), I experienced by far the greatest relationship betrayal up to that point in my life. These things took out my mind, heart, and soul, and an unexpected major surgery took out my body.
My old buddy depression set in, as I again made best friends with my bedroom, and seldom came out of it. During that time, I gave the Nicsperiment a break, only posting once that entire summer to let my readers (a sizable amount back when blogger was a viable social media format (I think I like it more for what it is now, but I do miss the higher number of eyeballs)) know that I was still alive. However, it's not entirely true that I stayed in my room...I mean, there was that definite period for a few weeks in late May/early June where I did, and I thought I was going to die, but then...
I painted the interior of the house next door. Alone, of course. Everyone in Glynn, Louisiana seemed to be out of town the entire month of June. I painted next to a ratty old radio, listening to KLSU, where I had DJ'd just months before...wishing I could still be on-air as a graduate. I made really good friends with my pets. At some point, a buddy of mine and I walked around the entirety of False River. It was supposed to be an eight-mile walk to False River and back, but we just kept on going and going until we walked around the whole thing. People I went to high school with and hadn't seen since graduation five years before slow-passed me in their pickup trucks to ask me if I was okay. What I didn't say was: "Sure. I may have been voted 'Most Likely to Succeed' by the class five years ago (the homeroom teacher forced them to vote that way-- they wanted to give it to TJ Grady, but she insisted it go to the person with the highest ACT score...youth may have been wiser in that situation, though time will still tell who wins in the Grady vs Nicsperiment battle for success), but now I am unemployed, living with my parents, and walking around this lake with my friend to cope with my ongoing depression, but I'm great!" Instead, I just said things like, "I'm fine. How's your stump-removal business going?" I haven't seen a lot of them since then, either. Maybe I should walk around False River again.
I went to Grand Isle a couple times (I watched the season finale of the first season of Lost there, and uncomfortably identified with the kidnapped character of Walt). During one of the periods where Glynn was completely abandoned, I covered the floor in old photographs and slept on top of them, filming the entire process, in between 3 am, hours long drum sessions, a Sopranos Season Five marathon, copious amounts of Wonder Showzen, and commenting on Sarah Lane's frequent Attack of the Show hairstyle changes. I made the mistake of showing this footage to my family when they returned, then had to work hard to convince them that I didn't need to be committed. I spent the 4th of July doing the greatest thing ever for my mental health, riding out to New Orleans with the pal I with which I walked around False River, to meet up with my future wife and her then boyfriend. That night I slept on an uncovered mattress with my shoes still on, during the spare minutes I wasn't thinking about my future wife and her then boyfriend, doing things I wished I was doing with my future wife. Every now and then, a cat jumped on me. At some point that a.m., I went to Denny's.
I listened to a bunch of great music. This paragraph isn't a jump into actually reviewing Sigur Rós' Takk..., though, so sorry about that.
I even found time to apply for a job at the library, which paid off the next year in a position that financially supported the next three years of my life (and my wife's life, too (we got married the next year)). I even went out a few times, and always enjoyed myself. You can see a picture of me below, second from top right, in the grey tee and red-and-white trucker's cap, snapped by Legacy Magazine for their upcoming Fall 2005 issue. My real-life giant walking pal is to my right (your left), and the dude I periodically play music with is to my left (your right).
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| Summer, 2005, at I believe the Baton Rouge Art Melt, talking everyone's ears off. COURTESY, LEGACY MAGAZINE |
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| Summer 2005, New Roads, LA. Man, what a hideous place, can't you tell? COURTESY, RLGWP |
Hurricane Katrina changed everything. It changed approximately 1800 people's status on Earth from "alive" to "dead." It changed 400,000 people's residential status from "has a place to stay" to "homeless." It completely destroyed my paternal side of the family's 30-year old Grand Isle residence.
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| Early September, 2005, Grand Isle, LA. The last remains of Rise & Shine. COURTESY, SON OF WILL |
I worked on-and-off in Katrina-related jobs during the eight years after it made landfall. So did plenty of my friends. Portions of New Orleans are still completely trashed, though you won't see them on any tourism brochure.
Hurricane Katrina completely changed the course of my 2005, and my life. It took me from "aimless wanderer" to "disaster relief worker." A few days after the storm, while visiting my cousin to see his baby born right in the middle of it, I got a phone call from one of the jobs I applied to, asking if I could work the job I applied for in a disaster-relief capacity for 30 days. I had $0 in my bank account, and a desire to do something. You can guess my answer.
That was one of the most emotionally intense 30-days I have ever spent on a job, and certainly the most emotionally draining job I have ever worked, but those 30 days elevated the year I was having from epic to EPIC. I haven't been using epic in an "I am awesome!" way, but in a "this brought a seismic shift to my life" way. EPIC. I worked the 7 pm to 7 am shift for what was then called the Louisiana Office of Family Support, administering disaster relief food stamps, holding interviews with heads of households who were applying for their families. Sometimes, the applicants accidentally listed a family member who died in the storm, and then suddenly apologized as they wiped that person off their list. I kept a straight face, tried to look official, but compassionate, then generally excused myself afterward to sob in the bathroom. Several times, National Guard workers who were on duty in the building, had their rifles propped next to the urinals. I could tell stories about that time for the rest of my life. It was surreal.
At the same moment, for the first time all year, my bank account was suddenly flush with cash. At 84 hours worked a week, I was getting time-and-a-half for 44 hours.
For the last two weeks of the 30-day appointment, I switched to the 7 am -7 pm shift, and worked in the file room. There, I had room to process everything that had not only just happened, but had happened that year. With money in my account, I could suddenly afford to go to lunch. I'd go to Taco Bell or The Jambalaya Shoppe, and see all of the construction and electric workers who had bussed in to help from other states. Epic. I also had money to purchase, and time to listen to new music. I bought all the albums recently released by bands I liked, and all of the albums by bands featured on the then currently running season of Rescue Me (Season Two), because I could identify with the ridiculously heightened emotions of that program (just look at these episode descriptions!), though I wonder if I'd enjoy it as much, or find it insufferable now. Yes, I bought a bunch of music, and as I think about it, I've written this review already, for another album. Actually, I've written a bunch of shorter versions, over and over and over and over again. I'll probably write it for a few other albums, as well, finishing up with U2's The Unforgettable Fire, which should be the end of the matter, mercifully leaving five letters where I won't broach the topic. Haha, just kidding, I'll find some way to work it into all the rest of those letters, too. It's the linchpin of my life. It's The Nicsperiment's The Empire Strikes Back if the story didn't end with Return of the Jedi, but kept going on and on in The Expanded Universe, replete with repetitious super-weapon and warlord storylines.
Really, though, Sigur Rós Takk..., released right in the middle of that disaster relief 30-day appointment, reminds me of that epic feeling right at those last few weeks, where I felt everything I'd gone through that year tipping in a higher direction. I realized I wanted to go back to school to get an MFA, finally giving my life direction. Of course, the irony, instead of going back to get my MFA the next year, 2006, my wife and her boyfriend went on a break, she and I got engaged three months later, and we were married before Christmas. The library called me, I took a full time job, and I worked there for a while until I took another Katrina-relief-related job, this one not lasting 30 days, but five years, managing abandoned lots.
For our wedding, my wife walked down the aisle to "Glósóli" from this very album I am neglecting to review. Epic.
Takk... also reminds me of a moment after the disaster relief appointment ended, in November, shortly after I, in an epic showdown with my own uncle, left the cult, and attended a downtown Anglican church. One of my first Sundays as an Episcopalian, I took the Eucharist and walked out the door to a cool morning, skyscrapers rising before me like limitless possibilities. Limitless possibilities, but one outcome.
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| Mid-December, 2006, Baton Rouge, LA. COURTESY, PARTY PICS. |
As a late-period gen X'er, the 00's were confusing. No one ever talks about my generation, and the little attention we did get, I feel like ended as soon as Kurt Cobain died. I loved the sound of Sigur Rós coming to Earth, but (SPOILER ALERT) from this point on, they became permanent Earth dwellers, and you won't see me give another one of their albums a 10/10. However, after releasing two absolutely alien albums that other in-the-know gen X'ers absolutely ate up, Takk... finally got the attention of the millennials. Many of the millennials I know heard Sigur Rós for the first time at my wedding. My two millennial siblings also used Sigur Rós songs for their weddings' "here comes the bride" moments, though they chose songs from the post-Earth touchdown albums that were released after Takk...
Takk... itself is an alien/Earth hybrid. These songs retain the alien charms of Sigur Rós' first albums, violin-bowed guitar, starbound strings, and those weird unnatural soundscapes the band seemed to be able to conjure without effort. However, the song structures are easier, the track-length is shortened, and instead of building to a climax after minute-upon-minute, Sigur Rós are adamant upon getting to the big stuff immediately. Hey, millennials have shorter attentions spans, amirite millennials (jk, millennials)? Actually, the balance is perfect here. Jónsi Birgisson's high voice is a little less alien, maybe a little more spritely, but still alien enough. Again, the band isn't Earthbound just yet. They're breaking through the atmosphere, golden lights of heaven behind them, hand reaching out. Yeah, that's really dramatic. Epic.
Early in 2006, a few months before my wife and I got engaged, RLGWP, The Rabbit, and I went to see Sigur Rós play in Houston. What an incredible show. The band played part of it behind a huge translucent curtain, casting immense shadows everywhere, ripping through some of Takk...'s best songs. The three of us had a great time that night, and stayed with a friend. Then The Rabbit had some kind of romantic troubles and left RLGWP and I high and dry and carless in Houston. RLGWP was trying to get something started with a girl in Houston, so he hit the streets, and my friend and I hung out with her daughter and watched a metric ton of movies for a few days. RLGWP and I then found out that a mutual acquaintance (another old KLSU DJ) was in town with his wife for the same Sigur Rós show, and had been staying with his in-laws. We bummed a ride back home. It seemed like my wandering would continue. Apparently, these kind of adventures would be my life. When I got home, and it became clear that grad school wasn't going to work out, I picked up an application for the Peace Corps. Then the whole engagement and library thing happened. But that's a whole other story...if only there was another album whose upcoming review could serve as an excuse for telling it...
A QUICK NOTE: I made it a point in this post to only include photos taken by someone other than me. I hope this achieved its intended effect.
POSTSCRIPT: Weeks after confronting my uncle and leaving the cult, I sometimes doubted if I'd done the right thing. I felt a lot of fear and uncertainty at times. One afternoon, after driving home from Baton Rouge into the late autumn sunset, "Andvari" came through my speakers. It is impossible to hear those last three minutes of strings and not know for certain that everything is going to be alright.
2005 Geffen Records
1. Takk... 1:57
2. Glósóli 6:15
3. Hoppípolla 4:28
4. Með blóðnasir 2:17
5. Sé lest 8:40
6. Sæglópur 7:38
7. Mílanó 10:25
8. Gong 5:33
9. Andvari 6:40
10. Svo hljótt 7:24
11. Heysátan 4:09
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