Sigur Ros from a live performance at the Philadelphia Theater of the Living Arts

M and I saw Sigur Ros a few months ago at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee, a grand old cavernous victorian theater appropriate to the grandeur and glacial largeness of Sigur Ros. It was one of the best shows I've ever seen. This Icelandic band fuses a naturalism with electronica and traditional accompaniments in such a way that it can only be characterized as a genre unto itself. One feels the warmth and intimacy of the human while also being put into close proximity to the divinely natural, shimmering like the battered light off the ocean waves at midday. In this clip you can see the glacial blue light and Jonsi's bowstroke guitar work as the band works their way through three great songs, Ny-Batteri, Svefn-G-Englar, and Olsen Olsen. The crying pathos of Jonsi's vocals seem to express the sorrow of the melting glaciers, the tapped out North Sea oil fields, the decimated cod fisheries, and the harrowing wind of the Icelandic landscape. Amazing. Click line above.

Bonus footage of a great song "Hafsol" at the Glastonbury Music Festival: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejipDNelLp0&search=sigur%20ros%20hafsol%20glastonbury