From Iceland — 20 Years After Takk…, Sigur Rós Retains Having Enjoyable

Looking again on the band’s seminal document with Georg Hólm

“In a weird way, it almost feels longer ago,” says Sigur Rós bassist Georg Hólm, talking to me forward of the twentieth anniversary of Takk… on September 12, from Milan, the place the band is taking part in a present inside their new orchestral tour. 

“With the record before that, (), The Bracket Album, we’ve been touring for years and years and years. It was a difficult record to make — you never saw your house and your family because we were either touring or in a studio. It was a lot of sacrifices,” Georg remembers.

“It was one of those records that in typical Sigur Rós style, we would record the whole thing, and we didn’t like it, and we would throw it away and re-record everything.”

“The funny thing is, all the records and all this time that we’ve been in the band, it does sort of blur a little bit — it all becomes one record in your head,” he continues. “But when reminiscing about the time we were recording it, I do remember that our producer, Ken Thomas, who sadly is not with us anymore, used to tell a story that we would decide we were going to use the first three weeks of April to record, and then the first two weeks he would just be sitting there waiting for us to show up, and nothing would happen. During the last week, we would come in like a storm and do all kinds of stuff. But at the same time, if the sun was shining, we would be out in the courtyard playing football instead of recording. We did waste a lot of time, but we’d been doing so much work all these years that we felt that was kind of necessary — just for the camaraderie and to do other things than just work. But it was one of those records that in typical Sigur Rós style, we would record the whole thing, and we didn’t like it, and we would throw it away and re-record everything. We’ve done that more than once, and that record was not an exception.”

Dancing to structure

It was 20 years in the past that the Grapevine obtained its arms on a stolen copy of Takk… and shortly realised the band had entered a brand new chapter. Before our name, I requested Georg to learn our overview, curious whether or not my colleagues from twenty years in the past captured what the album was actually making an attempt to mirror.

“I did read it,” Georg nods, “The first feeling I got was that that is not a review, that’s a dissection. I’m probably the worst person in the world to talk to about album reviews because I find them a really odd thing to do. I just don’t understand them, same with movie reviews. I mean, I love some movies that got shit reviews.”

He continues, “I kind of laughed out loud a little bit, because it’s kind of like a dissection of what happens in each song as if it were a scene in the movie? And I’m like, okay, the bass comes in at minute three. Why would I even want to know that?”

“I like to quote David Byrne, but I think he’s actually quoting someone else when he says that. So this is like a third-hand quote — ‘talking about music is like dancing to architecture.’ Listen to it and feel it. I don’t want to know what instrument plays what, although it can be fascinating. But again, that is just me. I have to admit that I found it really intriguing reading it, though.”

For me, Takk… is an era-defining album — simply its tracklist, every successful by itself, I’m going again to the recollections of listening to those songs for the primary time. Georg smiles, “Takk… is definitely defining in many ways — it’s probably our most successful record, if you think about it like in the old days when people actually went outside, walked into a store and bought a thing that they would put in their players. It was the record that sold some million records, and it’s definitely defining in that way, and a great success. I really love that record, it has great moments.”

Forgotten bits

For the twentieth anniversary of Takk…, the band is reissuing a particular version remaster, which incorporates three unique Takk… period B-sides and two beforehand unreleased tracks, “Melrakki” and “Elfur.” The launch comes with a particular version vinyl, with every music getting its personal facet for optimum sound high quality.

“We always have little bits and pieces here and there that either don’t fit [anywhere], or that we really liked but were never able to finish and make a song out of them,” Georg says of the added tracks. “There will always be some little bits and pieces. It’s like at a tailor’s — there are always cutouts here and there. Even songs like “Hoppípolla” — it was a kind of bits initially. It was a kind of 10 little bits that simply grew to become a music.”

“Kjartan remembers these things really well. He has this memory glue in his brain,” says Georg, admitting that he himself would by no means keep in mind these snippets even existed. “But why release them now? I think it’s time. They were never going to become bigger than they are, and they are nice. It’s a re-release, so I think it’s fitting to just put everything with it.”

Since Georg already introduced up “Hoppípolla,” a music typically dubbed Sigur Rós’s “money song” due to its widespread success and frequent presence in TV and movie, together with David Attenborough’s Planet Earth, I’m curious to learn the way he feels about it now.

“We all really love that song, and we still play it live,” says Georg. “I mean, we had a working title for it, ‘The Hit Song,’ because we kind of knew that this will be a hit. I do remember playing this to our management, we just played the loop that we knew was going to be a hit and they kind of went, ‘are you insane?’ They didn’t get it, at least in my memory. It did become a song that we would constantly be hounded for it to be used in commercials and all these things, but we would always just say no.”

Georg stresses that “Hoppípolla” would by no means be utilized in one thing like a cigarette business, however on the subject of movie, it’s a special artistic subject. “You do not say no to David Attenborough, who does that?”

“We get letters all the time of people getting married to it, and or a child being born to it,” he continues. “It’s beautiful, and I think that is one of the reasons why I don’t like reviews. Music has such meaning to a lot of people. If I got married to a song, or when my baby was born to a song, and then I read shit reviews about it, I would be offended, it becomes your song. But then again, it’s just music, you know? It’s frequencies.”

Speaking of hit songs, Georg provides their most performed music in the mean time isn’t in actual fact “Hoppípolla,” however one thing that has develop into a TikTok development. “It’s called “Smáskifa” and it’s just a bit piece. We used to play it dwell as a type of an outro to the present. That’s what TikTok does and the way issues change,” he says.

“We’re playing a show tonight. We played a show last night, and we’re still playing songs from that album. We’re still playing “Hoppípolla.” We’re even taking part in songs from our first document Von. Sometimes it’s a bit bizarre. You stand on stage and also you’re taking part in a music that you simply wrote nearly 30 years in the past, and also you type of go, ‘what am I doing here?,’” Georg smiles. “When we formed the band back in 1994, I remember that we talked about that we would continue doing this as long as it’s fun. We’re still enjoying it. It’s still fun.”

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Takk…(20th Anniversary Remaster) is now out there on streaming platforms. The particular assortment vinyl may be ordered through Sigur Rós’s Bandcamp.