Re: OT-- Sigur Ros

> how did i know Sigur Rós would appear at some point ?
>
> they are indeed excellent (imho), altho they seem to
> have a knack of making usually relatively coherent
> people spout utter rubbish ( tears of angels . . .
> rocky snowscapes . . . &c &c &c ).
>
> music particularly characterised by the lead singer,
> jón þor birgisson playing his guitar with a cello bow
> and singing in a keening falsetto. influences range
> from heavy metal to icelandic ( and by extension
> celtic ) folk music
>
> anyway, what tim says about 'vonlenska' is pretty much
> how i understand it. when you hear the 'words' they
>sound like icelandic ( similar phonology, ghosts of
> inflectional endings ), but they're more systematised
> logolalia. the 'language' is called 'vonlenska'
> because it was first recorded on their track 'von' (
> which is also the title of their first album )
>
> the band are quite keen on puns ( except they seem to
> be puns not intended to be funny, rather like in
>sanskrt poetry ), the name itself means 'victory
> rose', but is a pun on jón's little sister's name
> 'sigurrós' ; the remix album of 'von' was called
> 'vonbrygði' which translates variously as 'von
> remixed', 'recycling bin' and 'disappointment' ; the
>second album is called 'ágætis byrjun', 'a good start'
> and these titles all appear in the last line of one of
> their songs ( i hope i can remember the icelandic )
> 'ég gaf þér von sem ver til vonbrygðum . . . þetta er
> ágætis byrjun' 'i gave you  hope that became
> diappointment . . . this [at least] is a good start'.
>
> the new album '()' is entirely wordless, altho the
> tracks originally had titles as well. they also
> apparently had lyrics at one point, but it was decided
> to replace them with meaningless syllables
>
> i imagine an analysis of 'vonlenska' would be quite
> interesting, as it now forms quite a substantial
> corpus of logolalic speech. don't think i'll be doing
> it in a hurry tho
>
> bn
Incredible!

I did not know all this, and it was a breath of fresh that now puts things
into perspective.  I just bought SR's album "()" two weeks ago, and I love
it!  I play it incessantly, more than my Björk collection, which means a
lot as Björk is the perfect woman in this gay guy's eyes.

I agree that the nearly inaudible uttering on the "()" album tends to sound
to American me as if it's Icelandic - I had no idea it was a sort of
conlang.

Well, here is something for you to view if you haven't already.
http://musicfinder.yahoo.com/shop?
d=hc&cf=lamuimg&id=1802162924&photoid=193736

Kudos.
M.E.S.