Upon the first listen of “Ekki Múkk,” the first sample of Sigur Rós’ new album Valtari due out in May, the song may come across as two and a half minutes of glacially slow build up to Jonsí’s falsetto warbling and a similarly slow outro. As is generally the case with such first impressions, it belies the truth.
That the music is so stone-footed is by design, as its parent album checks in at nearly an hour with only eight tracks. Valtari will likely maintain the pace and ethereal spirit found on “Ekki Múkk.” As for the song itself, it displays a stripped-down version of the band’s signature sound. As longtime listeners of the Icelandic band can probably guess, the band still floats into the exosphere, only this time with even more minimal orchestration. Whether or not that part of “Ekki Múkk” is unique to the track or indicative of the upcoming album will only be settled when we hear the album. Regardless, it’s a beautiful near eight minutes that sounds like no other band in the world. It goes without saying that expectations for Valtari, already impossibly high, have hardly been tempered by our first taste.
