SIGUR ROS – official website biography – May 2025
OFFICIAL SITE
On 16 June 2023 Sigur Rós made their live return at the Meltdown Festival in the Southbank Centre in London, and they have been back on the road ever since. That day the band took to the stage surrounded by the 41 members of the London Contemporary Orchestra and surprise-released their first album in a decade on the same day.
Átta translates simply as “Eight”, being Sigur Rós’s eighth studio release. Their remarkable sonic journey stretches all the way from the independently released Von (“Hope”) in 1997 via their international breakthrough, Ágætis byrjun (“A Good Beginning”), in 1999 and their biggest seller, Takk… (“Thanks”), which they celebrate with a 20th anniversary reissue in September 2025.
First a quartet, then a trio after multi-instrumentalist Kjartan Sveinsson left in 2013, a duo following the departure of drummer Orri Páll Dýrason in 2018, and a serene-sounding threesome again when Kjartan rejoined to make Átta, they were initially labelled a post-rock band, but no scene or sub-genre has ever managed to hold them. A band that can sell over 10 million albums worldwide without a hit single or a Grammy, while singing mostly in Icelandic, a language spoken by fewer than 400,000 people, is ploughing a highly individual furrow.
Across three decades of matchless output, the group’s sound has consistently scaled monumental heights. Jónsi Birgisson’s bowed guitar and spectral voice have been joined by ambient chamber music on Ágætis byrjun, a folkier more energetic style on Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust (2008) and something quieter, stiller, slightly more electronic on Valtari (2012). Away from their albums they have provided hypnotic music for Old Norse poetry (Odin’s Raven Magic, 2020), a 24-hour drive around Iceland’s perimeter (Route One, 2016) a documentary about a bus terminal (Hlemmur, 2002) and ambient sound baths (Liminal Sleep, 2019).
Átta began when Kjartan travelled to LA for a social visit with Jónsi and ended up jamming in his basement, Kjartan on an electric piano, Jónsi playing guitar with his signature cello bow. The pandemic delayed any further work, but once travelling was possible again Kjartan returned, and then bassist Georg Hólm got involved.
With so much time having passed since the relatively aggressive sounds of the Kveikur album, Átta is the calm after the storm, almost percussion-free and glowing with unhurried beauty. The band found themselves “just wanting to have minimal drums and for the music to be really sparse, floaty and beautiful,” said Jónsi. “We’re getting older and more cynical so I just wanted to move us so that we felt something!”
Georg added: “This record sounds like a Sigur Rós album, but it’s more introverted than before. It’s very expansive with this sound of strings, but it looks within more than outside.”
It was recorded mainly in the band’s own Sundlaugin studio in Iceland, with the London Contemporary Orchestra adding its extensive musical riches in Abbey Road Studios. The Orchestra’s conductor Robert Ames has gone on to lead an international range of ensembles on a lavish Sigur Rós tour that has expanded from that Meltdown show to last for over two years. Kjartan, Robert Ames and his wife Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir (from regular Sigur Rós collaborators Amiina) wrote orchestral arrangements for the shows that include new versions of old favourites including – from the minimal 2002 album they called ( ) – ‘Untitled #1 – Vaka’, as well as ‘Sé lest’ and ‘Hoppípolla’ from Takk… and their debut album’s ‘Von’.
Accompanied by New York’s Wordless Music Orchestra for eight dates in North America in the summer of 2023, the trio have since been joined on stage by numerous others including Symphony+81 in Japan, the Balvig Orchestra in Sweden and Denmark, and the city orchestras of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide on their 2025 Australian tour. In September 2025 they cross Europe again, including four nights at the iconic Royal Albert Hall in London, completing their journey in the company of the Noordpool Orkest in Amsterdam.
At the same time, Takk… will reappear in its 20th anniversary finery. The major label debut and commercial high point for a band that has never sought the mainstream, the album was a platinum seller in the UK and shifted over 200,000 copies in the US. Sigur Rós noted the collection’s potential for wider appeal at the time, albeit within the context of their singular style. Some songs were a shade shorter than usual. They described the piano-led grandiosity of ‘Sæglópur’ as “almost classic rock and roll”, while Kjartan labelled the glistening ‘Andvari’ as “a power ballad. You know, like The Scorpions.” Tongues may have been in cheeks there, but there was undeniably a fresh hummability to the melodies, and when Glósóli finally hits top volume, over four-and-a-half minutes in, it’s an air-punching moment. “When it finally explodes it’s great. It’s a fantastic feeling,” Georg said.
Then there was ‘Hoppípolla’ – the one everyone knows even if they might not know who wrote it. Sigur Rós called it ‘The Hit Song’ before it had a title. Numerous film and TV moments have all reached new emotional heights thanks to that majestic piano motif.
When they made ( ) in 2002, the group had been riding the wave of their newfound international success with endless touring and had been playing the songs live for three years before recording them. Looking back, they realised how tired they were at that time. Takk…, in contrast, started from scratch in the studio, and this time they were ready to create music that matched the scale of their acclaim. It’s “our happy album”, Kjartan has said. ‘Hoppípolla’, translated, is about jumping in puddles. ‘Heysátan’ (“The Haystack”) may be about a farmer being crushed by his own bale, but at least he dies contented.
The band moved on to even more beautiful soundscapes with Átta, but Takk…’s is still a birthday worth celebrating. There isn’t another back catalogue in music like this one, and on the orchestral tour, it sounds even more spectacular. “It is weird to think that some guys from Iceland who sing in Icelandic and some nonsense language are able to play all over the world and have so many people want to come and see us,” Jónsi has said. “There are no lyrics or stories for people to hold on to. It’s more about pure emotions that people experience from the music.”