Sigur Ròs
( )

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer believed that listening to music would allow one to break free from the chains of life's meaninglessness, from the bites of need, from life's blows and madness. Music could, even for a few seconds, tear open a hole in the paper sky of man, reduced to a mere and sad puppet in the world that flies and raves in all directions, without purpose, without directive, nor consolation.

In 2002, four boys from distant Iceland decided to get to work, stop following the frenzy, the confusion of the world around them, and try to make sense of it. The result is ( ). In fact, Jón Þór Birgisson and his bandmates had been active for several years and had already managed to astonish anyone who encountered their music. In 1997 with Von (in Italian, 'hope'), two years later with Ágætis Byrjun ('a good start'): on the verge of the 2000s, Sigur Rós are taking off, leaving behind all the toxins of the commercial music surrounding them. Commercial music: an oxymoron for those who recognize themselves as artists, a meaningless word for the four Icelanders.

( ), also renamed Svigaplatan (the album of the parentheses), includes eight tracks separated halfway by 36 seconds of absolute silence. A watershed between the first part, light and optimistic, and the second, more restless and nostalgic. The eight tracks are untitled. Because there is no need for a title, there is no need to give meaning to everything, art is often irrational. The album is entirely sung in Vonlenska, an invented language by Jón Þór Birgisson: a musical language. This language had already been used in previous albums, but only in some tracks. Now, in ( ) this language envelops the entire work, caresses it with the candid voice of Jón Þór Birgisson, permeates it without overwhelming it, without confining it: without giving it a completed sense. The Vonlenska is a language that has no grammar but consists of meaningless syllables. The voice thus becomes purely a musical instrument, capable of evoking emotions that evidently cannot be expressed in words. And I assure you it is the same feeling you would experience listening to the last two tracks of the album, renamed "Dauðalagið" and "Popplagið": without words.

For this album, judgments such as "soundscapes reminiscent of Iceland’s atmosphere" have been wasted, etc... But it's nothing of the sort: ( ) is art, uncompromising, not definable in concepts. It can be said that the music of Sigur Rós sits between progressive and post-rock, but that would be reductive. An attentive listening to this album can transport one into a mystical experience. Different for everyone, of course. Everyone can give the title they want to the tracks of the album, everyone can choose what meaning to give to the syllables sung by Jón Þór Birgisson, everyone is free to decide which brush to use in painting the mental journey that inevitably arises from listening to ( ). Everyone, in short, is free to choose the origin of the shivers they are experiencing while listening.

Schopenhauer thought that music was the art that could best free us from the detritus of the senseless will to live. But only for a few moments, because then one inevitably returns to earth. I think this album instead represents the triumph of meaninglessness, the serene acceptance of something that cannot and should not be escaped. The only way not to slip into quicksand. The problem is that it is only ( ), a parenthesis.