A Satisfaction of My Senses

sigur rós consists of jón þor (jónsi) birgisson (vocals, guitars), kjartan (kjarri) sveinsson (keyboards), orri páll dýrason (drums) and georg (goggi) holm (bass). the band were formed by jónsi, georg and original drummer ágúst in 1994. they were later joined by kjartan and when ægúst left the band after the recording of ágætis byrjun in order to pursue a career in graphic design, he was replaced by orri. sigur rós hail from iceland, and rightly claim to bring you the beautiful landscape of their homeland with their music. it's impossible to fully justify it with words, so the best advice would be to check out the media page and listen to some tracks from their astonishing back catalogue.

sigur ros have released four albums so far, plus one remix album (von brigði - recycle bin). the first album, recently given a worldwide release for the first time, is called von (hope). frequently unrecognisable from the bulk of their subsequent work, von is an experimental and ambient work, which many believe to be a concept album (something the band deny, however).

the band really found their feet with their second album, the masterpiece that is ágætis byrjun (a good beginning). the album was originally released only in iceland, but was discovered by brighton's fatcat records, who snapped the band up and released the album in the uk in august 2000. the band attracted a huge critical acclaim throughout the world in the second half of 2000, particularly in america. this resulted in a frantic hunt by major us labels to secure the rights to their material in the states. large quantities of cash were offered, although in the end the band chose the deal which gave them most artistic freedom. this was with mca records. the band toured north america for the first time in april and may 2001, and the vast majority of the dates sold out straight away. perhaps due to the hype in the american media, the shows were attended by many big name celebrities, somewhat to the band's bemusement.

sigur rós released their third album in october 2002, entitled ( ). the lyricless and titleless album was a darker, rawer and less accessible follow up to ágætis byrjun and came out to favourable reviews around the world. the album sold well and even reached #52 on the american billboard chart. the first track from the album was released as a single in may 2003 and reached the #9 spot in america's nielsen chart. at this point in their career, sigur rós had now sold over one million records worldwide.

the band produced three videos from the first three albums; two for songs from ágætis byrjun and one from ( ). the band's first video, svefn-g-englar, was released in june 2000. the video features members of the perlan theatre group, an icelandic group of downs syndrome actors who regularly perform in iceland. the second video, for viðrar vel til loftárása, was released in september 2001. this remarkable video is set in the 1950's and follows the story of two young boys. the end of the video features a football match involving the boys, with a surprising and monumental climax. the band's third video, 'untitled 1' (aka vaka), was directed by the highly respected italian director and photographer floria sigismondi, and was released in february 2003. the video was a considerably dark affair, featuring playing children in a post-apocalyptic playground covered in black snow, where they must play under the protective guise of gasmasks. the video garnered mtv's attention and was awarded the best video of 2003 at the mtv europe music awards.

early in 2003, sigur rós embarked on an extensive european and american tour which included legendary performances at the hammersmith apollo in london and radio city music hall in new york city. they took a well-earned break that summer, after which they joined forces with radiohead to write music for the modern dance piece split sides by merce cunningham, one of the band's numerous side projects since the release of ( ).

2004 was largely spent writing and recording the band's fourth album, 'takk…' (thanks). finally released in september 2005, 'takk...' quickly became sigur rós' largest selling album to date and charted highly across the globe. it entered at number 16 in the uk charts and at 27 in the us. for more information about 'takk…' please click here.

the band celebrated the release of 'takk...' with an extensive world tour, playing their largest shows to date, including a headline show at the hollywood bowl. they are then taking a well deserved break before beginning work on new material.

- trivia

the name of the band, sigur rós, is actually the name of jónsi's little sister, except it's spelled sigurrós. she was born at the same time as the band formed. sigur rós translates to 'victory rose'.

trivia from the album ágætis byrjun: the strings in starálfur are palindromic; they are the same forwards and backwards. the album's intro is a chapter from the title track, ágætis byrjun, reversed. avalon is a chapter from starálfur, slowed down.

the band originally intended to record ( ) in a disused nato tracking base in the northernmost mountain in iceland, but after inspecting it decided it was too unpractical. shortly after they found an abondoned swimming pool lot in a rural neighbourhood in iceland called álafoss. the band bought the lot and transformed it into a studio, where they recorded ( ). to get their massive mixboard in the building they had to open up a part of the roof and lift it down with a crane.

bassist georg is occasionally refered to as 'white fang' after his ability to catch trout with his teeth. drummer orri is nicknamed 'the animal' because his father's name is dýri, which means 'animal'.

the first song sigur rós recorded for the ágætis byrjun album was (shock!) ágætis byrjun. when they finished the song, they played it to their friend who really liked it and said it was an "alright start" (= ágætis byrjun), so they named the album after that.

viðrar vel til loftárása (from ágætis byrjun) means 'good weather for an airstrike'. once, on icelandic tv during the war in kosovo, a weatherman ironically said that 'í dag viðrar vel til loftárása' ('today is good weather for an airstrike'). sigur rós named the song after this.

in 1995, jónsi fronted a band called 'bee spiders', under the alias 'jonny b' (a hidden reference to 'jón birgisson'). kjartan was also an occasional member of the band, serving as female background singer (tina turner style). jónsi wore sunglasses onstage throughout the whole concert. bee spiders received the 'most interesting band' award in 1995 in a contest for unknown bands called 'musiktilraunir' (music experimentations), in which kjartan appeared in drag, in keeping with the female background singer idea. the band played long rock songs and were compared to the smashing pumpkins. jónsi also fronted a grunge rock band called 'stoned' around '92-'93.

much about sigur rós is coincidental.. for instance jónsi being the singer and him using the bow on the guitar.. ágúst (the former drummer) got a cello bow for his birthday and georg started "torturing" his bass with it (it sounded horrible) and then jónsi tried it on his guitar (which sounded better). jónsi has used the bow since at every concert. jónsi became the singer because no one else could sing. the cymbal in ný batterí is a cymbal that they found on a street downtown that was bent and had apparently been driven over. they liked the way it sounded and wrote the song from there.

sigur rós have an impressive celebrity fan base. celebrities that have either attended sigur rós concerts or raved about them in the press include brad pitt, madonna, tom cruise, gillian anderson, jason lee, tommy lee, natalie portman, david bowie, björk, moby, and bands such as metallica, red hot chili peppers, bush, coldplay, foo fighters, rage against the machine, no doubt and radiohead.

sigur rós recorded their first song, fljúgðu, in six hours.

for their first album, von, sigur rós painted the studio they recorded it in, in exchange for recording the album.

keyboardist kjartan is the only member of sigur rós who has studied music, this is why he does the string arrangements for the band. bassist georg is educated as a filmmaker and orri is listed in the icelandic phone book as 'orri páll dýrason, janitor', although he has never had this occupation. orri's girlfriend is listed as 'janitor's wife'.

the band's production of the first album, von, was a very long one and in the end, the songs sounded completely different from the original recordings. the band considered scrapping the final result and starting all over again, but decided not to because this would have taken much too long. the last song on von's remix album, von brigði, is a song by sigur rós which was supposed to go on von but couldn't be finished in time, so they put it on the remix album instead. this song, called leit af lífi.

their first album is entitled von, which means hope. their following album was a remix album of von, called von brigði, which means disappointment. cunningly, the world 'tilbrigði' means 'alternative version'. the third album, ágætis byrjun, means 'a good beginning'. the last lyrics of the album are 'we sit down excited, listen to ourselves play in rhythm to the music / but the sound wasn't good / we were all in agreement / we will do better next time / this is a good beginning'. these lyrics refer to the band's listening to von upon its completion, agreeing that the next album they make (ágžtis byrjun) will be better.

all of the band's three music videos were originally meant to be for different songs but split decisions were made before shooting to change to different songs. the svefn-g-englar video was originally meant for viðrar vel til loftárása, the viðrar vel til loftárása video was originally meant for starálfur and the vaka (untitled #1) video was originally meant for njónsavélin (untitled #4).

the producers of the david letterman show offered the band 3 minutes to play on the show in early 2001. the band declined because of the short time slot but were offered them a comprimise of 4 minutes. this time slot was was still far too little for the band, whose songs average on 7-8 minutes. the band has performed at two other american talk shows who have given them more time: the late late show with craig kilborn in december 2001, and last call with carson daly in march 2003.

sigur rós assembled and glued together the cases of the first print of ágætis byrjun themselves. this resulted in many of the cd's being unusable due to glue stains on them.

all sketches on ágætis byrjun were done with a bic ballpoint pen.

singer jónsi has been blind in one eye since birth.

the first song jónsi learned how to play on guitar was wrathchild by iron maiden, at the age of 13. iron maiden remains one of jónsi's favourite bands today. orri's favourite band has been black sabbath from an early age. the members of the band don't all have the same taste in music but they all share a great adoration for leonard cohen.

in 2000, sigur rós did the voices for an icelandic children's mathematics video game called 'reiknibíllinn' (the calculation car).

in 1997, the band adopted a hippie appearance, started wearing hippie clothes and grew long hair and beards. this picture is from a concert in reykjavík in late 1997.

in june of 2000, sigur rós made an unannounced surprise appearance at a small music shop in reykjavík under the alias band name 'whm'. insiders have later revealed that this abbreviation stands for 'we hate music'.