VIA PRESS RELEASE | Sigur Rós announce the release of a special 20th anniversary edition of their acclaimed album Takk… via Krunk.
A boxset of 5×10” vinyl, limited to 3,000 copies, is now available to order exclusively from sigurros.com, while 3×12” vinyl and 1xCD formats will be in stores on September 26th along with accompanying digital version to stream and download. A Takk… art print is also available as an indie exclusive with the 3×12” vinyl in selected stores and through sigurros.com. All formats are remastered by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound. Pre-order/pre-save Takk… HERE.
Five rare tracks from the vinyl and digital editions of the Takk… reissue are available to stream and download from today. The b-sides and extras feature the original b-sides from the 2006 “Sæglópur” EP release plus two previously unreleased tracks, “Melrakki” and “Elfur,” originally written and recorded in the lead up to the recording of Takk… and now available officially for the first time. Additionally, a newly created Dolby Atmos spatial mix of the album will be available digitally on the album’s actual anniversary of September 12th.
Few bands cut through the noise and distractions of the world to bring you a pure elemental truth or feeling like Sigur Rós. Two years on from the release of Átta, their most intimate and emotionally direct record to date, and in the midst of a global orchestral world tour, they are looking back two decades to their major label debut and a commercial breakthrough for a band that has never sought the mainstream—the album was a platinum seller in the UK and shifted over 200,000 copies in its first year of release in the US.
Sigur Rós—frontman Jónsi, bassist Georg Holm, and multi-instrumentalist Kjartan Sveinsson—noted the collection’s potential for wider appeal at the time, albeit within the context of their singular style. Some songs were a shade shorter than usual. They described the piano-led grandiosity of “Sæglópur” as “almost classic rock and roll,” while Kjartan labelled the glistening “Andvari” as “a power ballad.” Tongues may have been in cheeks there, but there was undeniably a fresh hummability to the melodies, and when “Glósóli” finally hits top volume, over four-and-a-half minutes in, it’s an air-punching moment. “When it finally explodes it’s great. It’s a fantastic feeling,” Georg said.
Then there was “Hoppípolla”—the one everyone knows even if they might not know who wrote it. Sigur Rós called it “The Hit Song” before it had a title. Numerous film and TV moments have all reached new emotional heights thanks to that majestic piano motif. It’s “our happy album,” Kjartan has said. “Hoppípolla,” translated, is about jumping in puddles. “Heysátan” (“The Haystack”) may be about a farmer being crushed by his own bale, but at least he dies contented.
The band moved on to even more beautiful soundscapes with Átta, but Takk…’s is a birthday worth celebrating. There isn’t another back catalogue in music like this one, and on the orchestral tour, it sounds even more spectacular. “It is weird to think that some guys from Iceland who sing in Icelandic and some nonsense language are able to play all over the world and have so many people want to come and see us,” Jónsi has said. “There are no lyrics or stories for people to hold on to. It’s more about pure emotions that people experience from the music.”
