ABSTRACT
The music of Sigur Rós often eschews narrative direction, in particular through the band’s use of Vonlenska – syllabic utterances in place of lyrics. A resultant sense of stasis often prevails, frequently linked by commentators either to the Nordic landscape or to post-rock. Using these contexts as points of departure, this essay argues for the enhanced role of timbre in Sigur Rós’s music: timbral recurrence over longer time periods creates a rather unorthodox sense of time passing and shape forming in the context of popular music.
