Friday, May 12, 2006

recipe for ice/sound

sigur rós brought their euro/iceberg/ambient/ear melding show to the state theater last night. coupled with incredible visuals (maya deren, much?), transparent screens and perfectly sequenced lights, the group (seven onstage including the opening classical vixens amina ) tore through a majority of their newest album, takk, as well as some gems from ( ) and Ágætis Byrjun.

without more than one word of stage banter for the entire show (it couldn't possibly be a language barrier), frontman Jon Por Birgisson used his traditional violin bow to cut away at his white les paul and screamed his angelic falsetto to the point where it could've easily been that of a five year old girl. ironically, the giant screen was filled with what appeaed to be avant garde renderings of five year old boys.

there were bells, piano, ensemble violins, impeccably precise bass notes and a whole lot of mesmerized people. at one point, bassist Georg Holm started a song by tapping a drum stick against his bass and creating a faint beat that started small, but ended in an ear splitting montage. Birgisson knows when to hold his tongue, and the crowd knew exactly when to be pin drop silent to catch the smallest whisper that morphed into a crashing crescendo of sound.

the perfect way to describe a sigur rós show? ron said, "patience". i say, "a patient mountain of varying temperatures invaded by horsehair, fits of epilepsy, ice, sugar, tears and horn-rimmed glasses." repeat and stir. result: incredible.

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