Not a sky in the clouds: Soundtrack to God's Orgasm

I’ve listened to Sigur Rós since 2000 or so but about six months ago decided I finally had the time and inclination to be one of those nutjob fans; the kind who downloads their concerts from the web, who carefully peruses their back catalog to make sure I have every song the band ever performed, and so forth. (The latter is no easy feat. Sigur Rós have a tendency to give multiple names to what is actually the same song, like Untitled A combined with Untitled B is also called Smáskifa, and Untitled 4 is also called Njósnavélin, the Nothing Song, as well as the Spy Machine.)

One of the things I’ve done in my insanity is setup a comprehensive Google Alert for “Sigur Rós” which gets me everything that everyone in the freakin’ world is saying about the band is on the web. (If you haven’t played with Google Alerts, I highly recommend it. You set an alert for anything you are interested in, and I mean anything). The end result of alerting is a whole lot of crap in my Google Reader, and a few diamonds. But those diamonds are totally worth it. Because of Google Alerts, I was one of the first to hear about their acoustic performance of Við Spilum Endalaust at La Closerie in France, and I got ahold of an unmastered “rough mix" of the new Riceboy Sleeps album (a collaboration between Alex Somers and Sigur Rós’s Jón Þór Birgisson).

Perhaps the most comforting thing about reading other people’s spewings about Sigur Rós is learning that I am not alone in my obsession. I came up with the phrase “soundtrack to God’s orgasm” to describe their music and then was pleasantly surprised to read that others are thinking along the same lines.

This article speaks of their music as charged with the grandeur of God. “There's such a hugeness to this music--the melodies are clearly in service of something more than entertainment or selling CDs.”

Another discussion (in the context of being a pastor) centers on Sigur Rós’s gibberish language (sometimes called "vonlenska"). In sum: the feeling of the words is more important than the words themselves.

God may not have a gender, but I couldn’t help but notice that many Sigur Rós songs follow the pattern of the female orgasm…building up to a plateau, building some more, coming to a climax or crescendo, then slowly melting into detumescense. If you don’t believe me, listen to Glósóli from “Takk,” Untitled 7 (aka Dauðalagið or the Death Song) from “()” or Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása from “Ágætis Byrjun.” I think this person (who suggests listening to Sigur Rós while getting busy between the sheets) would probably agree.