Bodysong - Jonny Greenwood

Track list

1. Moon Thrills
2. Moon Mall
3. Trench
4. Iron Swallow
5. Clockwork Tin Soldiers
6. Convergence
7. Nudnik Headache
8. Peartree
9. Splitter
10. Bode Radio/Glass Light/Broken Hearts
11. 24 Hour Charleston
12. Milky Drops From Heaven
13. Tehellet

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2003

I doubt very much I will like this one much. Picked up, of course, because of the artist being better known as one of the members of Radiohead, Bodysong is not something I have ever sat down to listen to before, except perhaps once when I bought it. Since then I suspect I have skipped every time a track came up if I was conscious of it and not otherwise engaged. Still - actually paying attention to items like this is what this project is all about, so can't complain!

This is apparently a soundtrack, but not to any film I had heard of. I can't remember how I came across it - some years after it was produced, but felt compelled to shell out once I had. The first track is pleasant enough I guess, sparse piano chords and a sense of emptiness imparted by high register trills. It took me a while to see the "h" in the title when I checked. Those trills grow more wearing as the track progresses and by the end I do not like it.

I am sitting down to this listen in procrastination over Christmas shopping. No good ideas; nothing that matches the ideas that I have well enough. I don't want to buy sweets for other people's children (family I will not see in person), so what?  It has been that sort of weekend; unproductive and a struggle. I have upgraded to Windows 10, finally, however and now I get an annoying beep every time the track changes. Grr; sound alerts for sys-tray notifications. Something else to be disabled. A couple of clicks later and that is done, along with the second track - a short interlude which segues into Trench seamlessly (and with no beep!).

So far this album is exactly as unengaging as I was expecting it to be. Divorced of the context of the film to which it was created, these sounds are aimless and odd constructions, the sounds too individual to enjoy. Iron Swallow, for example, is shrill and yet sombre. A string lament coming on the back of space-scape type imagery created (at least in my mind) by the first three numbers, whilst Clockwork Tin Soldiers sounds like a conversation between The Clangers that was left on the cutting room floor over its first minute. The track then changes direction a fair bit, back to spacey, sci-fi sounds. I am sure the visuals gave good reason for these tonic shifts, but without them it just feels random. Convergence is all percussion - another different tone. I am seriously considering breaking form and just stopping the listen here, declaring the whole disc a casualty and moving on. As a listening experience this leaves a lot to be desired.

It really is unfair to pass comment on a soundtrack with no knowledge of what it was composed for like this. I can only assume that the vagaries of the film demanded such a definite lack of coherence and theme. It sounds like a sampler of samples for other musicians to pick up and do something with in places - some pattern or other that on its own is nothing like enough to carry a track, but which has a lot of potential if placed in the context of more composition. Alas here that never comes, so whilst Nudnik Headache has a really nice rhythm to start, that is all it has and, once you notice that, the charm of the rhythm starts to dissipate. I am sorry to say that judged on the soundtrack alone, Bodysong is a mess.

Just as I type that, Splitter starts. This has a really high tempo, drums, and brass. It is immediately a much more engaging track for the extra depth. The percussion is the structure here, the horns the interest - aside from when the former disappears and the trumpet solo we're presented with has all the appeal of a slap in the face. It is a brief moment in the middle of the track, which otherwise keeps the energy high, but it sums up the disc so far - an unannounced and unwelcome shift - and kills the track. I find myself wondering when it will end which, for a track under 4 minutes in length, is not a good sign. Considering I liked the first half of the number a lot, that is a real disappointment.

Hope for a track to stand out and demand to be kept is fading, but the opening to 24 Hour Charleston has a nice sense of threat to it, a dark demand. Unfortunately, and not for the first time, I find that the promise in the track is not backed up by and development so it runs the whole length on that initial form and allows you to see just how little is there. I suspect that this is one of those soundtracks that was very tightly wound to the film, simply because when you stand it alone it is so obviously... incomplete, lacking something. That invention or extra dimension that could turn what feels like a sonic mess into a carefully constructed counterpart. There are moments in some of these tunes which evoke really cool jazzy sounds but Greenwood is not a jazz man, and the tunes are not really jazz tunes, so strong foundations go undeveloped.

Would I reconsider cutting all of this if I saw and loved the film? Maybe; knowledge of how the soundtrack integrates, suits its subject, could fundamentally change my perception of it. However having looked it up briefly, I don't feel any need to go find something else to spend my time sat in front of enough to do so. I feel more than happy with the decision to simply cull this soundtrack from my library altogether. Some nice ideas, but not enough done with them; tonic shifts that were jarring, and poor man's jazz - I can't recommend it.

The Bends - Radiohead

Track list:

1. Planet Telex
2. The Bends
3. High And Dry
4. Fake Plastic Trees
5. Bones
6. (Nice Dream)
7. Just
8. My Iron Lung
9. Bullet Proof ... I Wish I Was
10. Black Star
11. Sulk
12. Street Spirit (Fade Out)

Running time: 48 minutes
Released: 1995

A classic now. 20 years old. I caught High and Dry on shuffle on my MP3 player whilst travelling to (or from) Greece and I remember thinking then that the song holds up well, so I suspect the same is true of the album as a whole. Time to find out.

I haven't tagged this as a favourite because, to be honest, I have hardly listened to any of these tracks in a very long time, that chance play above aside, but as soon as I hit play I am reminded that whilst I am always searching for new stuff, or cycling through other artists, there is something here. This is Radiohead at their most accessible, many might say best (personally I am torn on which release I prefer). Yorke's voice, the helicopter-blade like whirr, the rumble... Planet Telex brings everything back. 20 years, eh?

The truth is that I did not immediately get Radiohead, it took the osmosis of hearing my brother's copy of this album from his room next door a lot for the quality to sink in and have me go get my own. I want to say it was the melody of High and Dry that sucked me in, but it could have been the edginess of Just; I don't remember that clearly. The title track is all nasal whine, harder guitars than I remember. It really is a long time since I listened to this. Somehow Radiohead are a group that have never made it into the pile of discs I carry round in the car. Maybe I thought I had moved on, but that's just crazy talk... you don't move on from enduring quality.

It is a bit of a struggle to think what to write on this listen though. What can I say about this disc, these tracks, that hasn't been said before and better by others? High and Dry started just now and its given me goosebumps. Again. Something about this track strikes close to home even now - whilst two decades have passed, I retain some of the same vulnerabilities that I did as a teenager. They are perhaps not on display as much, and more adroitly handled as an adult but some triggers can bring them back and music has always been very good at poking holes in any facade that I might try to put up. The best strikes at you emotionally and I feel some of those strikes very acutely. Nostalgia this ain't - there is no fondness looking back on some of the memories that these tunes stir. Fake Plastic Trees is forever associated with one of the biggest emotional "bangs" that I have ever experienced, a difficult day with an explosive conclusion, pouring rain and an inner turmoil that took me a goodly long time to get over. Its funny to think that this morning, before I sat down to do this, I was trying to remember which track that was and couldn't, yet as soon as it starts playing...

Yeah, I have a lot wrapped up in this one, but its all history - maybe that explains some of why I do not listen to it much anymore though I have certainly never consciously avoided it. Looking back now is weird - for as much as it brings back strong impressions, emotions and feelings I am detached from them, in a better place despite the flaws I share with my younger self.

Ah, Bones. I couldn't hear this track in my head from reading the title - but now its constant rumble is ringing in my ears it is welcome. I like tracks like this that snarl and roll. I never got into all-out noisy thrashing of metal, grunge or any of those harder, rockier movements but crafted loudness like this retains a feral appeal. I think this track appeals to the same part of me that loves the noisier end of Mogwai's output, for instance. For tunes like this, if your ears aren't still hearing the track 5 minutes after it finished then what's the point? I never had much time for (Nice Dream) and had pretty much forgotten the course of the song, which is better than I remembered.

That intro - just so immediately, viscerally, appealing; combine with the self-deprecating/insulting lyric and mix. Just is still a heady cocktail of thoughts, but listening now I hear the composition of the second verse for what feels like the first time. The chorus, the bridge, these sections are the takeaways. The blandness of the accompaniment to that second verse has always been excused by the power of the rest of the track, so intoxicating. Less so this time through, it is not as strong a song as I recalled.

That is not something I would say for My Iron Lung - this song I think has got better with age. Of all the tracks on The Bends this best hints at where the band were going and where they came from all at once - the early career in microcosm. I don't have enough of the reviewers chops to explain why in a way that would convince anyone who did not already hold the opinion, but there is something about the contrasts, the wailing intro, the down and dirty midsection, that give me that impression.

Now this will be more interesting for me; I pretty much always passed on Bulletproof so I come to this track colder. I suspect that 20 years on I will like this more than I used to. The hooks underlying the chorus appeal more now - weird comparison time, they remind me of Microdisney's twee-but-angry 80s constructions. I don't think its a great song, but yes - more time for it now that I did have. I can't write more on that though because it's past and gone, and Black Star is pumping out. This was, I think, my favourite track when this album was contemporary. The chorus is constructed in a way that really appeals, tight, constrained and angsty, whilst the verses are more of a plaintive, open sound. I like the contrast, I have always liked contrasts like this in my music and whilst this is not the most stark of differences, it points to an element that I can trace through much of my collection (one high point being The Phantom Band track Folk Song Oblivion from Checkmate Savage where happy-clappy choruses accompany dark, brooding menace in the verses).

Sulk, how I used to live up to your name. Used as a crutch much? Sure, but no more. This time through I am just enjoying the swell, the pulse of the melody, more than the lyric or the harsher guitar in the midsection. I think this may be Yorke's finest vocal performance on the album, personally. And just like that we are leading out. Well, fading out - the loopy guitar on Street Spirit is an all time classic to the point that if I asked you to recall the song how much of the rest of the arrangement would you be able to describe? Not much, I would imagine - certainly I couldn't. I am hearing things now that I really did not recognise from memory at all. Some of the top end, the structure of the percussion, backing strings. I almost wish Yorke wasn't singing over it, and just as I think that, he isn't because the disc is done.

That's something else worth noting - these songs are all, to a one, in that sub 5 minutes "radio friendly" length bracket. None overstay their welcome and the time has flown by as a result. Not really enough time to write much about any of them as they played, and certainly no time to be bored. The album definitely holds up, though I am surprised that Just is the song that does so the least for me, perhaps because I have since found other tunes that scratch that itch better. My takeaway from this? I am not sure really, but it has left me with the nagging feeling that I should not be so quick to discount some of my older physical discs from doing duty on the commute.

Postscript: after publishing this post I was checking other #Radiohead tagged posts on G+ and found a link to this, which is funny enough that I have to share:

Amok - Atoms for Peace

Track List:

1. Before Your Very Eyes...
2. Default
3. Ingenue
4. Dropped
5. Unless
6. Stuck Together Pieces
7. Judge, Jury and Executioner
8. Reverse Running
9. Amok

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2013

So after revisiting Radiohead, it is one of the things that Thom Yorke went on to do thereafter that follows. I do not recall really listening to this, picked up because it was Thom Yorke, at all. I have its genre recorded as "Odd" which suggests it was ripped without a straight face.

I have a feeling that Atoms for Peace includes some other famous musicians, but I cannot be bothered to look up whom they may be as their names did not stick once and they were not the cause of my purchase. Like Amnesiac this record is in the classic 40-45 minute range but the songs here are sightly longer since there are fewer of them. That could be a good thing or a bad thing... lets find out!

I am guilty in all my writing of overusing two things: ellipses and parentheses. The ellipsis on the end of the title of the opener feels similarly gratuitous. The song itself has a decent shuffle to it, and as Default starts I sense that a shuffling kind of rhythm is going to be a feature. I quite like that, not being averse to electronica... providing there is enough with it to provide structure and musical accompaniment. From the early numbers here there is probably just enough to keep things interesting. The beeps and clicks and whirring are offset by Yorke's ethereal vocal. All in all it evokes memories of Kid A and Yorke's solo album The Eraser but with a slightly more chilled edge - less urgent, more considered. Ingenue begins like it should be a Boards of Canada number, and continues much in that vein. This would make for a good sci-fi soundtrack, or maybe just the background music for a scene played out in a hipster hangout in a dystopian future. "This is how we get through the day."

Random imagery aside, I would not want to listen to this everyday, or in sequence. The effect will, I think, get too much by the end of Amok, which is not to say that I do not like it in small doses. I find the tracks to be well constructed, with just enough going on to maintain interest and a good contrast (though Dropped has too much of a hint of a Windows error message about it in places). However I worry that it all becomes a) much of a muchness, and b) overpowering after a while. There is definitely a groove here though, one to be enjoyed, but I am definitely erring on the side wishing each track was a touch shorter.

Unless seems to darken the tone, the drone seems to have taken on a sinister side, amplified by the vocal signalling disinterest - it commands to me an image of a violent crime just happened, ignored by all passers by; hopefully not the intention! I overcame the error chime thought to really like Dropped, but the tonal shift has me feeling really off about this track. I think there is more to it than a sudden click in of the prophesied boredom with the format, and it is unsettling enough a thought that I want to revisit the song later to check.  The darkness does not appear to pervade though, the overtone of threat is gone from the next track, but it is replaced with a distant uncaring air... a boredom. Me projecting, certainly; this is the prophesy kicking in, right?

I certainly feel there is now a disconnect between the music and me that goes beyond the coffee hit wearing off. I am not sure, but there seems to be less to later tracks - more space, less arrangement, more excuse for the mind to wander. It is really hard to tell whether that is my expectation of distance self-fulfilling or whether I am picking up on a genuine change in the construction of the tunes. Reverse Running reverses the slide a bit though, so I think there may be something to the thought. Incidentally, this is why this project is not about reviews; I am not putting it on my own head to listen again and again to be fair and accurate to what is there; it is going to take me long enough to listen to everything once just to capture the impressions it creates.

God, that sounded self-important given this a purely self-driven, self-rewarding activity. I am such an arse.

Oh, I liked that the last two tracks seemed to mix together. I am not sold by the opening of Amok, but the merge from the end of the previous tune was unexpected. It just needs to gain another layer or two to really get going but I am not convinced another layer is forthcoming. It hovers just under the threshold for full attention, which is really frustrating; as if there is a great tune there trying to come through but a layer of invisible blandness is actively stopping it from realising its potential.

That would be a really harsh note to end on, so here is another. Amok is a pretty good album, if a little indistinct to plough through in full. There was nothing unpleasant here but it only really hit high notes once. Nothing to be cut though, and not for sentimental reasons this time.

Amnesiac - Radiohead

Track List:

1. Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box
2. Pyramid Song
3. Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors
4. You and Whose Army?
5. I Might Be Wrong
6. Knives Out
7. Morning Bell/Amnesiac
8. Dollars and Cents
9. Hunting Bears
10. Like Spinning Plates
11. Life in a Glasshouse

Running time: 43 minutes
Released: 2001

I thought I had 2 copies of this album - a regular and limited edition. Turns out I am either mistaken or I gave away the regular version at some point, but I still have the limited edition that I received as a 21st birthday present, as I recall.

It has been an age since I listened intently to any of these songs and whilst I can still hear a number of them if I bring them to mind, others are complete blanks. Had you asked me whether I thought I would forget any of these songs in the year after it was released, I would have thought you were mad. Oh the foolishness of youth, and the sad realities of life, growing up and the passage of time. I really liked Kid A despite the change of direction that had lots of people doing a collective WTF? after OK Computer. This album, recorded at the same time as the former, is in a similar mould.

Packt... is all beeps clicks and thumps but unlike say, Animal Collective, the use of them here dovetails with a less cacophonous vocal and a considered backing. It makes it more listenable, but I am not a big fan of this opening. I remember loving Pyramid Song, though. Rich and full whilst being spaced and haunting.  There goes that dodgy memory again: haunting yes, but rich... not so much. The song does build a depth of sound over the course of its run though, structured around the vocal and keys which hold everything together. OK, rich maybe does fit, but not for the whole length of the song. The strings, when they arrive, lend a fullness to the piece and I think they could have been used to bring about a much more fitting ending. It's a fine song that has aged, but gracefully. Which is more than I can say for Pulk/Pull. The only thing that saves this tune from the cut is, well, that it is on this album. I am not averse to deleting tracks from albums, but I am reticent to do so for albums that I have had so long or that I might realistically listen to as albums again. OK, the chance is low, but it is there. Sometimes less palatable tracks are part of the milieu, part of the whole that needs to be considered together. Lets not fudge this: the fact it is on a treasured album from my (relative) youth saves it, even if I would no longer list this disc as a favourite.

You and Whose Army? is a sentiment that I would venture that most young people have rolled around their heads at some point, and I was certainly no different. I think Yorke's vocal really works on this track, and the backing is far better than you might think in passing. I do not recall the variety and the lines other than the sombre piano from 15 years back, but on this listen they stand out nicely. The twang of I Might Be Wrong is a welcome one though. There is something faintly dirty about it, grubby sounds for a grubby future (now past). I could fault it for repetition but the hook is so catchy and the rhythm is interesting enough that it just about manages to swerve me pinning it for that. It swells nicely - or is that me simply imagining the swell? I think it might be the latter. I have to say that where I have been harsh on denouements before now, I quite like the one here, if only for the lonesome sound in the lull before it kicks in. 

Ah, now that mournful refrain was always a favourite. Knives Out is darkly melodic and resonates with me now as it ever has. The echo effect amplifying the lonely air and the creepy lyric. Listening properly there is a bit of a sonic mess here and there in the backing which is interesting because it never overshadows the clear melody. The album has now peaked, I suspect. 

I was never a fan of this version of Morning Bell, a worse rendition of one of the weaker Kid A tracks, I felt. This impression sticks on revisiting it here, and again the song is saved from the cut simply by being on this album rather than another and on we go.

Dollars and Cents sounds virtually nothing like what I remember. The same sounds are there, but the relative levels and the structure are different than in my recollection; my memory had the bassline more prominent and the title more front and centre lyrically. I have to say I prefer the flawed memory version to the real thing, but the song does contain enough interest, bite and drive to still be enjoyable. The rest of the album really is downhill, right brain? Hunting Bears I could not place at all by title, but its lamentations are familiar when they kick in. It makes for an interesting interlude, but nothing more than that.

Wow, the intro to Like Spinning Plates is the first 1 minute 46 seconds, that had not registered at all previously. I recognised the low key pulsing but expected the vocal to kick in much sooner. I do not recall this track fondly, and frankly I find this dull now so thus far, 2 of 3, the memory has the downward slide right. I think I would like Life in a Glasshouse more if it was Tom Waits and not Thom Yorke singing it. The wandering vaudeville style arrangement is more a Waits trait and it would suit a gruff retelling. Humphrey Littleton's trumpet sings out over what otherwise is a tangled old composition. It is actually a much stronger end than I remember it being, and for that I am glad.

The limited edition book

Having listened to the album in full for what must be the first time in a decade at least, Amnesiac stands up reasonably well. Two songs are pretty bad, and two more are simply alright. However there are 11 tracks here, all over fairly quickly, which is another feature that surprises me in hindsight - the 2 minute interlude track aside, everything else is in the 3-5 minute range of the radio-friendly pop song - and most of it is perfectly accessible, even if it does contain elements that may not have been so in 2001. The other 7 range from good to great, sharing a mostly dark in tone which suits a November night.

It is not their best album, nor my favourite, but it is still a fine collection of tunes. I am not surprised to still approve.

Airbag/How Am I Driving? - Radiohead

Track List:

1. Airbag
2. Pearly
3. Meeting In The Aisle
4. A Reminder
5. Polyethylene [Parts 1 & 2]
6. Melatonin
7. Palo Alto

Running time: 25 minutes
Released: 1998

Radiohead. Polarising, less relevant than they once were. I picked up this EP long after it came out, well after they had left this era behind. Honestly, Airbag is pretty much the only song title I recognise. Lets see what it is like with a modern sensibility.

Airbag itself remains a striking opener. I find I like the body of the song less than the intro these days but that screeching as it exits the speakers for the first time is a solid impact, and whenever the refrain returns it feels like a better piece of music, but that is less frequent than my memory would have had. I find myself glad when it ends as I am no longer ruining my young adulthood by tearing up memories.

The album cover says this release was aimed at the US. Pearly makes that feel like it may be a musical aim as well as a commercial one based on perceived preferences. It feels bland, guitars on dull rock settings, and Yorke's voice stretched thin over it. There is none of ... something I want to associate with this era of Radiohead but cannot quite put my finger on. My failing there, but yeah; so far this is lacking and Meeting in the Aisle does nothing to disabuse me of that notion. Had I heard it blind, there is no way I would attribute it to Radiohead in a million guesses. Maybe it hints a little bit at the Kid A path taken after OK Computer (the real contemporary of this EP) but even that is a stretch.

A Reminder does not have an obvious Radiohead stamp on until the vocal starts, but there is something about this slow, sparse track that captured my attention as soon as it began. Really hard to identify what it is or why* but the soundscape of this track is really successful at creating an atmosphere, and a sense of something building. I am left disappointed though, it never crescendos and instead ends abruptly: it feels like a waste.

Polyethylene. This song sounds familiar now that I hear it again, but not in a way that does anything for me. It leaves me cold in a similar fashion to Pearly, whilst Melatonin turns me off by being too synthy. This really is an in-between release - neither one thing nor the other and it suffers for it. Palo Alto closes the disc and it has something intangible about it, like A Reminder, but I am left on the fence and feeling as though it does not quite come together right. Like the whole EP - it has elements of the guitar rock they began with and the more experimental edge that they took later (though a lot more of the former) and to me it feels caught between the two. Not melodic enough to work as one, and nothing like as balls-out electronic as it would need to be to work as the other.

I am faced with the impression that either this was just a bad selection of tunes that are neither one thing nor the other or my current tastes have found me migrating away from the Radiohead of the late 90s. I loved OK Computer and I actually always really liked Kid A (The National Anthem is awesome, and the segue from Optimistic to In Limbo was one of my favourite transitions at the time). It will be a while before I get that far to see how I find them holding up, but I did hear Black Star (from The Bends) more recently, and I did still love that. The wider catalogue will have to wait and see.

*I guess at the end of the day, that is true for a lot of our musical preferences

90 Bisodol (Crimond) - Half Man Half Biscuit

Track List:

1. Something's Rotten In The Back Of Iceland
2. RSVP
3. Tommy Walsh's Eco House
4. Joy In Leeuwarden (We Are Ready)
5. Excavating Rita
6. Fun Day In The Park
7. Descent Of The Stiperstones
8. Left Lyrics In The Practice Room
9. L'Enfer C'est Les Autres
10. Fix It So She Dreams Of Me
11. The Coroner's Footnote
12. Rock And Roll Is Full Of Bad Wools

Running time: 38 minutes
Released: 2011

Aha! After a few albums I did not enjoy much, this is pure pleasure.

I cannot recall why I picked this up, whim I think, but I am very glad I did. It has received a fair bit of car-play in the last few years, only coming out in the last couple of months.

The only thing I knew about HMHB before buying it was that the late lamented John Peel  (whose posthumous semi-auto biography I read earlier this year) liked them a lot, as did someone on a forum I frequent.

What I did not know included the talent for amusing stories in song form, wry humour that suits my sense of fun (hence the comedy tag; it is not a comedy album), dark tales delivered in a melodic and accomplished manner. I did not know about celeb references, twee murder ballads, necrophilia, korfball or selfish suicides. The tracks are all rather short but each recounts a scene that is vivid, and imagined to music that is far more tuneful than I had expected.

Yeah, the singing is not the best, but when everything else is so perfectly set up I can look past that easily. Any lyric that includes "jump off the roof of Dignitas" is definitely my sort of thing.

Joy in Leeuwarden (aka the korfball song) is probably the only one I do not really like on the album. It is a little... bland and the rolling guitars do not do it for me enough to cover the slightly dodgy harmonies in the vocal. That, though, is the worst I can say about anything on this disc. It is one of those where you press play then smile until it is done. There is an odd moment in Excavating Rita when I think it morphs into The Trickster (from Radiohead's My Iron Lung E.P.) which I do not remember but otherwise I find myself without too much to say about each track as they pass through, washing over my ears... I just like listening to this more than thinking of something to say about it.

Some of the stories are actually really disturbing, horrifying even. They would be darkly comic but unpleasant if they were not delivered with such wit, charm and with a generally simple, but reasonably accomplished tune set to back them up. This is another reason why I think genre-tagging is meaningless: I could not categorise 90 Bisodol to my satisfaction if my life depended on it. I like that; it shifts around styles and whilst, yes, it is made by white boys with guitars, they are clever about it.

My favourite song on the album is The Coroner's Footnote, no question - the picture painted is complete, vivid and wraps up in a conclusion that might punch depending on your point of view.

At time of writing this is the only HMHB album I own... I should really look up more of their stuff.

( ) - Sigur Rós

Track List:

1. Vaka
2. Fyrsta
3. Samskeyti
4. Njósnavélin
5. Álafoss
6. E-Bow
7. Dauðalagið
8. Popplagið

Runtime: 71 mins
Released: 2002

Yes - first thing - I have named the tracks. Last FM suggests I am far from alone in doing so.

Second thing that comes to mind is that I've seen Sigur Rós live once... probably heard some of these tracks. Don't really recall it at all, overshadowed as it was by the fractious nature of the friendship I had with the other person I was at the gig with, and the fact they were then unknown mid-afternoon support for a lineup that culminated in Radiohead's homecoming gig. That was 2001; this album came out in 2002 but their blurb says they were playing these songs for a year or more before that so... I only remember thinking "whalesong", for which I now am ashamed and full of regret.

I don't remember when I first really heard Sigur Rós and became a convert, but this album was almost certainly key to my doing so. I do regularly indulge in tracks from it, though 90% of that does tend to be either the superb closer or the supremely touching Samskeyti. Listening back can't help but feel the opening two tracks of the album are quite weak and that I'm going to end up concluding that my favourable overall impression is heavily weighted by the two standouts.

The arrangements are sparser than memory alone would have me believe - there's depth there, but it doesn't sound as lush or as layered as in my decade-old nostalgia. I do remember always having trouble discerning the tracks from each other - not because of the initial lack of names, but more because the vocals used from song to song have a certain reliance on similar sounds. Or possibly this is just my mind playing tricks again.

Samskeyti just started and immediately I am sucked right back in... and the keys have not even kicked in. When they do, shivers and goosebumps follow. It is just a spectacular melody. Always reminds me of the closer from Heima - their film. I want to say those visuals are of the group in a candlelit studio, but I don't trust my memory. Maybe I should re-watch it, it's been a while. I don't remember the sharp edge to the guitar line in my idealised recollection of the track; it's not unpleasant, just at odds with the softness and splendour of the piano.

Got distracted during Njósnavélin, jarred back to conscious thought when it ends; rather sudden cut-off to what is otherwise a very pleasant piece... but which gives way to the mournful drone of Álafoss which doesn't quite sound right as I listen in a relatively brightly lit room!

I have strong memories of walking in the rain listening to this album on the way to and from campus whilst I was in Bath doing my PhD. Those memories appear to almost entirely revolve, as my strong enduring love for it does, around a minority of the tracks. Also, the further I get through this listen, the more I think my earlier comment about the vocal stylings in each track being similar is reflective of how the human brain does not let memories go, as such, but rather twists them as pieces are lost - precisely the kind of activity that got me interested in neuroscience to begin with... not that I'm sad I left it behind: research really didn't agree with me. 

I am getting impatient. Not because Dauðalagið is bad, but because it isn't Popplagið and I am more in the mood for an uplifting cathartic climax than a dark, brooding number. The problem with this exercise is that I know what is coming and it pressures my "skip" trigger when what is up next is something I would much rather hear. That is, of course, precisely the point; listen to it all. I am sorely tempted though!

Patience brings its reward - that riff just cuts to my soul and the arrangement and drums gradually fill in and reach my consciousness. I could listen to this track on loop for a very long time before getting bored. I am certain to call a hundred plus songs my absolute favourite if this project lasts and this is the first of those pretenders. In some ways it has a less powerful effect than Samskeyti - no goosebumps this time - but it leaves a more lasting impression. This, I am sure, was not part of their set back in 2001... it can not have been, surely? Bloody hell... seems like it might have been. They list it as "the pop song" in a 4 track set where "untitled 8" may refer to Samskeyti if cross-referenceing with another entry in the list. Now my regrets from that day are amplified.

Drums kicked in; eyes closed; breathe deep; relax. 

Silence now, the album is finished. All I can hear is the tapping of my keys and the whirring of the laptop fan. Typing on this machine is annoying - far too easy to hit the trackpad by accident and I have had to undo and/or retype several sections of this post as a result. The silence is interesting though... it's filling my awareness in a way that it would not had I played Popplagið when the player was on a random selection from my library and so is re-enforcing the idea of an end. This in turn has me reflecting on the piece more - by which I mean the final track, but also this writing.

I think I have enjoyed this process, but starting with an album I like a lot feels like cheating. There are some other interesting items in the 20 more titled collections before I get to "A" but none of them hold my affection in the way ( ) does. The album clearly stands up still, but listening to it in full for the first time in several years has me less impassioned than I was. Three tracks stand out, two shine very brightly indeed (Njósnavélin is the third). I cannot bring myself to un-tag it from "favourites" but it only hangs in there by its fingernails.