i spent the last while upgrading most of the code behind the static pages on sigur-ros.co.uk - nice when things dont break and i also get to learn some stuff.

(dont ask me to define “while”)

i got an email the other day from ebay congratulating me on my second year with the site. the reason i signed up for the site was to complain about someone out there (in italy) who took one of my images, downloaded a sigur rós concert from us for free - burnt some cds, printed some cd booklets (with my picture on the cover) and put a listing on ebay - “1000 limited edition copies of (random concert) on sale for 20euros each”. the email wasnt a nice reminder that there are people out there who just like to make very easy money off something that i/we do for nothing.

‘hvarf/heim’ and ‘heima’ arrived today. hurrah

apart from “it was pretty much perfect” i dont know how to put “heima” into words. more pictures here.

i am beginning to get a bit hyper about “heima” which gets it world premiere in reykjavík in 11 days (september 27th at the reykjavík international film festival) and it gets shown two days after that here in helsinki at the rakkautta ja anarkiaa film festival (its sold out). after that it will be shown in new york, london and at a few other european (and beyond) film festivals in october and november. the film is released on double dvd on november the 5th.

previousily: “reading material“

in 2000 i inter-railed. i met an austrian girl in stockholms main train station as i was finishing up my few weeks. i told her about sigur rós and we swapped email addresses. a while later when sigur rós played in vienna the concert was recorded by austrian radio and broadcast. she taped it off the radio and sent the tape to me. as an introduction to the concert there was a simple piece of music played over the pa system. it was “für alina” by the estonian composer arvo pärt.

at one stage in this piece there was a noise by an audience member - i listened to it many many times trying to see if it was what i thought it was - a baby crying. so here i am now almost seven years later listening to the same song (this time a proper version) and i miss that little baby, keep expecting it to interrupt the delicate silence between the notes of the piano.

in 2005 it was the 200th anniversary of h.c. andersens birthday - and as part of it sigur rós provided the music to a ballet interpretation of the little match girl story by andersen

mp3: little match girl: music by sigur rós
youtube video: little match girl: sigur rós and the royal danish ballet
story: little match girl

taken from the 2001 sigur rós tour ep (with steindór andersen as guest vocalist) this song is one of my all time favourites.

sigur rós + steindór andersen: hugann seiða svalli frá: mp3: 6minutes: 6,9mb

if you’re a little bit bored as the summer turns into autumn - go check this out: sigur-ros.co.uk - managers tour diary. it was done by the manager of sigur rós over the bands most recent tour in iceland a few weeks back (and the bands final tour for a long time). at the moment (wednesday night) there is ten entries from the tour on it, we will publish the final three over the next few days.

(they filmed the whole tour and will release it on dvd at some stage in the near future (trying to predict a sigur rós release is pointless)).

i finally got around to updating our tour diary with news of last weeks concerts - i added the concert pics to the sigur rós flickr site..