Sigur Ros

One of my favorite bands is Sigur Ros. I've first heard their music at a photo exhibition a couple of years ago and liked it straight away.
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 Agúst in 1994. They were later joined by Kjartan and when Agúst left the band after the recording of Agætis 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.



Sigur Ros have released four albums so far, plus one remix album:
- 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)
- Agætis 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 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.
- takk…(thanks); finally released in september 2005, 'takk...' quickly became sigur rós' largest selling album to date and charted highly across the globe.

Sigur Ros also just released their first movie "Heima" (at home), which starts selling in December 2007. Here's a preview:

Official site is here.

Iceland

I had a strange and strong fascination with Iceland for the past few weeks. Not sure why or how, but I just got very interested in the country and all that. A lot from photographic point of view as well, those black beaches and green fields, glaziers and lakes, contrast, nature,.. must be great for photography..
Been reading all about it, checking tourist information, getting the activities and things to see down on paper. I've ordered (and now received) a bunch of brochures from Reykjavik and Icelandic tourist board. Have to say, they do have things organized and well presented, online and in paper form. Almost have my whole future trip set up :)
Don't know, I guess I should really go over there in the near future.
Photo: ©HKVAM @ Flickr