Sigur Ros Atta 45rpm 2LP (Clear Vinyl)

Few bands cut through the noise and distractions of the world to bring you a pure, elemental truth or feeling like Sigur Rós. As you hear on Átta, released in 2023, there's a new compulsion and drive to the band that comes with the new formation of the lineup. Multi-instrumentalist Kjartan Sveinsson returns (having left the band in 2012) to join frontman Jónsi and bassist Georg Holm. Recorded across multiple continents, Átta leans heavily towards the orchestral and touches on everything that has made Sigur Rós one of the most ambitious and acclaimed bands of recent times, while signaling an exciting and expansive possibility for their future. Átta prominently features the London Contemporary Orchestra conducted by Robert Ames, alongside brass performed by longtime Icelandic collaborators Brassgat í bala. It is mixed and co-produced by Paul Corley, alongside the band. 2LP set, clear vinyl. Limited edition.

Recorded in 2022 and inspired by the idea of unity in the face of overwhelming turmoil - climatic, socio-political, viral, and otherwise - the persistently warm and majestic, nearly hour-long ÁTTA often resembles a series of ambient, gradually expanding and subsiding, amorphous sound shapes more than songs....ÁTTA continually juxtaposes sparseness and lavishness, low tones and high notes, and ascending and descending harmonic progressions, culminating in the nearly ten-minute epic '8,' which includes the lyrics 'Sånne ting som du har sett på filmer' ('Things like you put on film'). While not the project's most mind-bending or boundary-pushing album, it's their most stunningly gorgeous, and a successful, timely countermeasure to the symbolic cover art depicting a rainbow in flames.