New Release Tuesday: Sigur Rós Hvarf/Heim & Heima

A similar conundrum was issued earlier this year by Radiohead, who released a record that would have created world-wide buzz even if it wasn't a legendary marketing tale. In Rainbows showcases a band that falls into a category not unlike Sigur Ros (in terms of infallibility and grandiosity) on the edge of their own sound. Whether or not you enjoyed the album as a whole, it proved that Radiohead could take little parts that were once glitch moments on other records and expand on them, making them more explicit parts of the music as opposed to nifty interludes. In essence, they moved past the part where noise, effect and ornamental decor were experimental, and fully utilized them for better or worse in a decidedly non-experimental way. It's almost as if they consciously noticed their movement past those trinkets used as placeholders on Kid A and Amnesiac and into a world where songwriting uses them as nuts and bolts. It's not a small statement, considering the fact that In Rainbows is still undeniably a Radiohead record -- its instant recognizability as such is partly due to Thom Yorke's unmistakable moan and partly due to the band's integration of pieces used in the past with newer ventures.

So, does Sigur Ros do anything like that with this new release? We've already accepted the fact that the songs are more of the same, and we've noted the reasons why that's normally ok, but if it's consistently the same for another ten years, will that be alright? Would it be alright if they played power pop or post rock? Metal is one of the few persisting genres that revels in more of the same, so does that mean there are types of music that can withstand a norm that continues to reform again and again with little more than theme or song length (and therefore varying time in between crescendos) to differentiate it from its counterparts? Probably not, but it does say something about the listeners. They either know what they like and see diminishing returns on an artist's development over time, or they are boring, boring people.

Zach Condon as Beirut released a new record this year as well, and its said that it is heavily influenced by his recent hermitage in France. A first listen confounded us though, and as we listened, we realized that perhaps we were too pedestrian to notice the differences between a Balkans influenced record and a Parisian one. On second listen, we thought, "Oh, he's utilizing some traditionally French instruments and song structures." Still, there's not a lot of progress between Gulag and this year's effort: Condon might have been influenced by new sounds, instruments and countries, but he's still writing the same song again and again.

It's in that way that Sigur Ros succeed with new material, even when it's old material: they're not pretending to be suddenly taken with the traditional folk sounds of some culture they're mildly acquainted with, they're sticking to what they know. What they know, as the movie explains, are gaping, awe-inspiring motifs and decadent soundscapes built upon the innermost depths of emotion and musical tyranny. At last, the scope of what makes them irreproachable is displayed for the listener in visual form, and the progression turns out to be a broadening of insight rather than a turn towards something "new" sound-wise. The combination of sound and sight makes the new record a step forward in a huge way, simply because we've been invited to attempt to grasp their inspiration. Perhaps we're wrong to identify the music as decadent in this case, then, considering the fact that the songwriters themselves probably consider shameless self-promotion, self-reference and media saturation the very culmination of the word.

Make no mistake, though, as the invitation isn't to get to know them as individuals or to allow them to sell their wares in a new medium. The film is decidedly sparse in terms of traditional interview material, and the band comments briskly that marketing is for Americans, and at home, they'll just play music. Their silence as individuals, their modesty towards the verbal promotion of their albums, is perhaps our greatest indication of what they seek to attain with the film. The title itself (translated as 'home' in English) begs us to consider what unfolds as a visual depiction of genesis, comfort and inspiration. Families spill out of homes to watch performances on blankets, the band's string quartet players (otherwise known as Amiina) are referred to as sisters, and the landscape itself becomes a character almost immediately. Each shot, whether it's a closeup of a hand on the neck of a guitar or a wide shot of devastatingly expansive countryside, is carefully chosen and framed as though it is speaking a dialog to the viewer. It's tempting to say the band is brazen enough to compare their music to some of the most majestic and humbling landscapes in the known universe, but we're not jumping to that conclusion.

It's more the case that the band is trying to explain something visually that they'd normally do sonically. They're showing us what's behind the delicately drawn curtain, inviting us to understand what has driven them through all of their recordings. The film, while perfect and beautiful in so many ways, is more of an ode to a homeland than a conscious statement of purpose, though. It's a gentle introduction, to be sure. And though the band isn't concerned with Barbara Walters-style interview scenes, we do get an incredible amount of access to the entire cast of characters: beautiful children, Jonsi's favorite traditional Icelandic folk tunes, and odes to musical traditions the band has no doubt utilized in their career (the marching band moment is tear-worthy) all operate as intimate portraits of a life surrounded by beauty, magic and wonder.

And in this manner Sigur Ros exits the limelight, having demonstrated flawlessly the way in which the same thing can be a new thing when presented in a new way. Who cares if they're charging across the bleeding edge of their own sound if that established method is broadened in this way? Surely no one who sees the film will listen to the records in headphones the same way again, and that fact seems to completely justify whatever path they tread with future releases: as outsiders to that culture, that homeland, that genesis, we're lucky to have had this minor glimpse.