Sigur Rós
Ágætis Byrjun

The advent of the new millennium also marks the beginning of new emotions. New fears, new joys. The fear of the end of the world, the happiness in finding oneself still alive.
But in the air, new music is heard. More than anything else, a new way of understanding it.

There are those, like Sigur Rós, who saw it then (and still see it now) as a means of opening up to a changing world, as a way to introduce the cold movements of Iceland, their native land. From it, they draw vital energy, and it is inspired by it.
In this "Ágætis Byrjun", in its hermetic and incomprehensible lyrics (written and sung entirely in Icelandic), there is all the light and darkness of their island, all the purity of the snow or the power of a geyser. From the dark tones of "Ny Batteri" to the playful lullaby of "Olsen Olsen", from the joy of living and the beauty of a flower blooming through the snow that seems to convey the wonderful "Staralfur" to the tenderness of children with Down Syndrome playing dressed as angels in the meadows of "Svefn G Englar", one of the most inspired tracks of the entire album. One cannot listen to this work with anything but reverence. One can only remain enraptured and at the same time frightened by the immensity that these young Icelanders can express thanks to their now distorted, now grand and orchestral sounds. Without forgetting the credit due to the voice of Jon Por Birgisson. Shrill voice, almost alien voice, voice like a satyr of the woods, melancholic voice, angelic voice. Great voice.

The emotions that these ten gems can convey are manifold, last but not least the one that this work is like the snake that bites its own tail, like the symbol of a millennium that ends and a new one that is born, like the idea that "Ágætis Byrjun" never ends. It is a vicious circle: as soon as the last track ends, one listens to it again in full from the beginning.