sigur ros land
by Jonah P. Hall

The name of the band, if you want to call them that, is Sigur Ros which, in an icelandic tongue, means victory rose. They are delicately beautiful. Some of the most emotive music I've ever witnessed. The lead singer, composer, and bowed electric guitar player is very tall, and very skinny, and has long limbs. As a stranger, he might appear to be the palest ethiopian ever born. He has a voice that people spend hours trying to describe. Whale-like. Alien. Male and female. Operatic. Crystalline. A dolphin-like soprano. Tears pass freely from tear ducts to eye corners and down cheeks into laps when he opens his mouth and sings. The language he uses seems created for the conveyance of emotional information and not mere fact. To hear a sound is common. To close your eyes and feel a sound is tonight. Feelings of which the surface tension is rarely broken. Sobbing one row and three seats to the left. he leaves and returns, composing himself to feel the composer again. behind, a voice says "I think I want to cry now," and I can only try not to understand, but to feel. I filter through many thoughts. I start to drift and reflect on my life and many minutes later, I realize I may have missed some of the beauty, to which I look around. I love watching the expressions on the faces of our audience. This is power. A look of utter empathy with a somber lower lip has come across the face of jared. A look which I hardly recognize on his face, a face that is forever thinking, or content, or slightly perturbed, or smirking in ironic amusement. People lean forward from the balcony, hoping to catch each note, or perhaps with cranky backs. This is a crowd which seeks out music. They are intelligent, I dare say, the most intelligent music crowd I have been a part of. Perhaps this is giving too much credit to eccentricity. They have discovered a group of young icelandic musicians who apparently sound like iceland. The greatest tourist advertisement for solace and isolation. A fluttering line of black birds crowds a telephone line along a panaroma of ice. A horizon line is barely visible, the difference between white ground and white sky. The birds move in a slower motion. Fluttering and bouncing to the drawn out chords and crisp snares, and deep bass. Slowly, they change positions. Some fly off jumping hesitantly, like first-time bungy jumpers, before their wings catch them, and they glide off. Minutes pass. There are now many empty spaces on the gently swaying telephone line. Spots of black birds on the left, and increasing space between the birds on the right, some still dancing, swaying, whispering to each other. As the music swells, the birds are suddenly motion and the black line of rubber is clear. The exodus has taken place. A rush of emptiness overcomes everyone. The birds have become part of the audience and to see them go is an empty and sad sight, filled with longing. The screen goes blank, the golden lights flash behind and under the drummer's platform, and around the angelic voice. The music increases in tempo and volume, and we are snapped back toward rock and roll. Weaving power among fathoms of stark beauty and cascades of emotion. This is Sigur Ros. See them. Feel them.