Sigur Rós

• 1. Introduction

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  Sigur Rós formed in Reykjavík in January 1994, taking their name not from a place or a feeling, but from a person: Jónsi's younger sister, Sigurrós, who had been born just days before the band came together. In Icelandic, the name means "Victory Rose". It was an unlikely foundation for a group that would spend the next three decades making music that critics worldwide would struggle to describe in any existing language, partly because the band invented their own.

  The three founding members were Jón Þór Birgisson, known to everyone as Jónsi, on guitar and vocals; Georg Hólm on bass; and a drummer, Ágúst Ævar Gunnarsson. They signed to Bad Taste, a record label owned by the Sugarcubes, who believed Jónsi's falsetto would appeal to teenage girls. What they could not have anticipated was that the same voice, drawn across strings with a cello's bow, would reach Wes Anderson, Cameron Crowe, and David Bowie.

  How did a post-rock band from Reykjavík build a global audience without conventional lyrics? What was the unnamed album, released with blank pages for listeners to fill in? And how did a song written for their 1997 debut end up playing at the hundredth birthday of David Attenborough?

• 2. A Language Without Meaning

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  Vonlenska takes its name from "Von", the opening track on Sigur Rós's 1997 debut, where Jónsi used the technique for the first time. The band later coined the English translation: Hopelandic. It is not a language in any conventional sense. There is no grammar, no defined word boundaries, and no semantic content. It consists of strings of syllables that carry phonological and emotive qualities without conveying propositions.

  The band's own website describes it as "a form of gibberish vocals that fits to the music." That plainness is striking given how elaborate the effect is in practice. Vonlenska sits closest, in the taxonomy of human vocalisation, to scat singing in vocal jazz and to puirt à beul in traditional Irish and Scottish folk music: both of which use melodic and rhythmic vocal elements stripped of conceptual meaning.

  Kjartan Sveinsson, the only member with formal musical training, joined in 1998 and contributed most of the orchestral and string arrangements for the band's later work. His arrival shaped the sonic context in which Vonlenska would be heard: not as improvisation, but as a formal element within carefully constructed scores. On the 2002 untitled album, every lyric across every track was sung in Vonlenska. The album's booklet contained blank pages, an explicit invitation for listeners to supply their own interpretations.

• 3. Ágætis byrjun and the Word of Mouth Years

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  Ágætis byrjun was released in 1999, and its reputation moved in the slowest possible way: person to person. Over the two years that followed, critics worldwide began writing about it with unusual intensity. High-profile acts including Radiohead, Coldplay, and David Bowie were among those who praised the record.

  After the album's release, Jónsi's method of playing guitar with a cello bow became a recognised signature. The technique produces long, sustained tones that blur the line between strings and breath, which suited the band's use of reverb as a compositional tool rather than a production effect.

  Three songs from Ágætis byrjun entered the Cameron Crowe film Vanilla Sky: "Ágætis byrjun", "Svefn-g-englar", and a live take of "Njósnavélin" recorded at a concert in Denmark in 2000. That live recording was of a song that had not yet been officially released. Crowe later described how he had gone to see the band perform in Los Angeles and heard "Njósnavélin" live, deciding it was the only track that could close the film. The same song, then called "Untitled #4", later appeared on the 2002 album, where it remained officially nameless until the band published titles on their website.

• 4. The Unnamed Album

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  In 2001, before the untitled album existed, Sigur Rós broke in their newly completed studio with a smaller project. They recorded a six-song EP called Rímur with an Icelandic fisherman named Steindór Andersen, who recited traditional Icelandic rímur poetry. The band accompanied him on three of the six tracks. The final song, "Lækurinn", was a duet with Sigurður Sigurðarson. Only a thousand copies were pressed, sold in blank white paper cases during the spring tour of 2001.

  The following year brought the album itself, known simply as and sometimes referred to without a title at all. All tracks were untitled on release. Drummer Ágúst had left after Ágætis byrjun and was replaced by Orri Páll Dýrason, making this his first full studio credit with the band.

  "Untitled 3", later named Samskeyti, went on to appear in the indie drama Mysterious Skin, in the British TV documentary Protecting Our Children, and during a section of the London 2012 Summer Olympics on the BBC. Film-maker Carmen Vidal used it in a short called 6AM, which won the 2006 Student Academy Award. The track can also be heard in the climactic scene of Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga on Netflix. Meanwhile, director Cameron Crowe's use of "Untitled #4" in the final scene of Vanilla Sky brought the album full circle to the relationship that Ágætis byrjun had already begun.

• 5. Hoppípolla and the Unexpected Single

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  Takk..., released in September 2005, took the band's established sound toward a more rock-oriented structure. Its second official single, "Hoppípolla", came out in November alongside a new studio version of "Hafsól", which had originally appeared on the 1997 debut.

  "Hoppípolla" then began appearing in contexts the band had not sought. The BBC used it in trailers for their natural history series Planet Earth in 2006. It closed the 2006 FA Cup final. ITV deployed it for coverage of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race that same year, and RTÉ used it for Gaelic games coverage in Ireland. An Oxfam advertisement followed. The song appeared in the final scene of the film Penelope and in trailers for both Children of Men and Slumdog Millionaire.

  Demand grew to the point where EMI made it more widely available. The band had scheduled the Sæglópur EP for May 2006, but the sudden momentum around "Hoppípolla" pushed the release back to July in most of the world and August in the United States. Sigur Rós finished a major world tour that July with stops across Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Japan, including a headline show at the Hollywood Bowl. On the 8th of May 2026, members of the band performed "Hoppípolla" at the hundredth birthday of David Attenborough, because of its long association with Planet Earth.

• 6. Heima: Playing at Home

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  After the world tour ended in July 2006, Sigur Rós returned to Iceland and played a series of free surprise outdoor concerts across the country. The venues included abandoned bunkers and community coffee shops. The word "Heima" means "at home" in Icelandic, and the 2007 documentary built around that tour carried the name as its title.

  The film organised itself around three elements: live performance, the Icelandic landscape as a shaping influence on the music, and interviews in which the band members described what it felt like to play in their own country. To promote the release, the band scheduled premiere screenings worldwide, each featuring a short acoustic set before the film and a question-and-answer session afterwards.

  On the 5th of November 2007, the band released Hvarf/Heim, a double compilation containing studio versions of previously unreleased songs alongside acoustic versions of older material. On the same day, Heima was released on DVD. A single, "Hljómalind", had appeared on the 29th of October as a preview. The release of Hvarf/Heim came four days later in the United States, on the 6th of November.

• 7. Departures and a Tax Case

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  Kjartan Sveinsson announced on the 24th of January 2013 that he was leaving Sigur Rós, feeling it was time "to do something different". The news came in a Q&A on Reddit. Without him, the band released their seventh studio album, Kveikur, on the 14th of June that year, two days later in Japan and four days earlier there than in the United States. Critics noted a more aggressive sound compared to the band's previous work. The album scored 80 on Metacritic.

  In September 2018, drummer Orri Páll Dýrason was accused of sexual assault by artist Meagan Boyd. On the 1st of October 2018, Orri announced his departure from the band.

  In March 2019, Sigur Rós were charged with tax evasion. The accusation covered incorrect tax returns submitted between 2011 and 2014, with 151 million Icelandic krona said to have been evaded. The band members attributed the errors to their former accountant and stated they were co-operating with authorities. The case was dismissed in October 2019, but an appellate court later overruled that decision. Three members were cleared, though charges against Jónsi and his company Frakkur continued. On the 24th of March 2023, all charges were dismissed.

  Kjartan rejoined on the 14th of February 2022, and the following week the band announced their first world tour in nearly five years. Their eighth studio album, Átta, appeared on the 16th of June 2023, self-produced and recorded at Sundlaugin Studio on the rural outskirts of Reykjavík.