Art Every Wednesday (25)

Denis Haack has posted some thoughtful and beautiful words on Sigur Ros on his website Ransom Fellowship. Here are some thoughts from the review:

"As a Christian I am drawn to Sigur Rós because in their music I hear an echo of my own heart. A deeply felt yearning for the something more that is hinted at beyond the narrow horizon of the islands we call home. The knowledge that as human beings we are invited to something beyond the broken beauty of the life we have known since birth. The invitation is innate, unrelenting, and certain, built by God into the fabric of our humanness and the glory of creation. We may try to drown out its quiet insistence with noisy busyness, but we can not deny it. Sigur Rós has heard the invitation and now seeks to capture it in music.

What seems to be missing in the lovely music of Sigur Rós is the understanding that the pilgrimage they invite us on is not a safe one. Not just any leap of faith will do—some end not in the clouds but in crumpled wrecks on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. The voice of mystic and Scripture are united: not every path leads to the light and most leaps of faith end badly. It is not the quality of our trust that finally matters, but what and who we trust."



"I wish you were in my living room, because I’d introduce you to Sigur Rós by having you watch the music video for “Glósóli,” which can be viewed online (www.sigur-ros.co.uk). A wonderfully simple yet creative film, we watch children on a strange yet enticing pilgrimage in the starkly beautiful and wild countryside of Iceland, drawn inexorably to something beyond. What is this pilgrimage? What is the relationship of the video to the lyrics of the song? How is it that the lilting music of the song seems to invite us to a similar leap of faith?

Now that you're awake
Everything seems different
I look around
But there's nothing at all
Put on my shoes, I then find that
She is still in her pyjamas
Then found in a dream
I'm hung by (an) anticlimax
She is with the sun
And it's out here
But where are you...
Go on a journey
And roam the streets
Can't see the way out
And so use the stars
She sits for eternity
And then climbs out
She's the glowing sun
So come out
I awake from a nightmare
My heart is beating
Out of control …
I've become so used to this craziness
That it's now compulsory
“Glósóli” (“Bright Sun”) on Takk"

For more on interacting with "secular" music from a Christian worldview here is this form Haack's blog: "Why do you review worldly music?"