New music from Sigur Rós
In 2016, Sigur Rós drove around Iceland for 24 hours, streaming the journey on YouTube backed by a soundtrack made by generative music software. They packaged some of the best bits onto a limited-edition vinyl release last year and have just recently made it available on streaming services as well.
The song titles are GPS coordinates and one listener has already created a map of the locations.
Also from the Sigur Rós universe, SR lead singer Jónsi, Alex Somers, and Paul Corley debuted their Liminal playlist on streaming.
The playlist is an extension of the soundbaths the trio have been hosting. They promise they’ll be adding to the playlist frequently…an endless mixtape.
Jónsi, Somers, and Corley’s Liminal soundbaths include solo work, remixes, film score excerpts, AI, and generative music, according to a press release. “Sigur Rós played live a lot during the last two years,” Jónsi said in a statement. “And inevitably you end up playing the rockier, more focussed songs, which means that loads of other stuff gets ignored. ‘Liminal’ tries to do something different. It’s just me, Paul, and Alex in a dark room manipulating and mucking around with recordings, FX and vocals. We play and sing sparsely and focus on the atmosphere coming together. There’s a sound-reactive light sculpture and everyone can sit or lie down. It’s all very cosy and people seem to like it.”
In addition, a 2009 EP by Jónsi and Alex Somers called All Animals was also recently added to streaming.
Somers also did the soundtrack for an episode of Black Mirror featuring music by Sigur Rós (which you can find on my Black Mirror playlist on Spotify).
BTW, I am still waiting for one of the streaming services to offer an album-oriented playlist feature. I want to be able to add entire albums to playlists and then shuffle the playback not by song but by album. I listen to a lot of music (like Sigur Rós) that works much better as whole albums; having to dip back into Spotify after one album ends and hunt the next one down in my list of albums or in a regular playlist is a pain in the butt. Does anyone do this?
Update: The Liminal playlist was updated last month with more than a dozen new songs.
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