y first encounter with "Untitled 1" aka "Vaka" was live at the Women's Club Theater on September 28, 2001. With its austere organ, lilting piano melody and angel-kicked-in-the-groin vocals, I was transfixed (although I must admit, not as much as I was by "Njosnavelin" aka "Untitled 4," which is even more superior live than on (), if that can be imagined). Up to this point I only knew/heard Sigur Rós through the bombastic, and slightly overindulgent Ágætis Byrjun. This new iciness was a big change from the Sigur Rós of "Starálfur," with its magnanimous strings and manic highs and lows. Sigur Rós's third album, (), surprised many with its abandonment of these elements, but proved that it could still carry the emotional weight of its predecessor.


Packaged in bulky cardboard, and like (), with absolutely no indicating marks of any kind as to tracklisting or even band name, the "Vaka EP" as it has become known, is typical Sigur Rós. Eschewing between song banter when playing live, the band insists that their music expresses more than they can possibly convey in words, and one listen to "Untitled 1" justifies their silence. Starting out much the same as its final studio incarnation, except with a longer beginning instrumental passage, and sans Jonsi's uber-emo-falsetto at the end (which is garbled on (), but breathtaking live), "Untitled 1" slowly changed through the year and in early 2002 the uber-emo-falsetto previously mentioned was added, along with the fading out of the piano to emphasize Jonsi's final plaintive wailing. The final studio version, which appears here exactly the same as on (), is a compromise length-wise between the two main incarnations, but sadly, the uber-falsetto is reverbed to hell, and loses the bone-chilling emotion that it provides in a live setting.


The b-sides, or b-side, seeing as they are three slices of one whole, is more akin to the band's work on the Hlemmur soundtrack than (). "Untitled 9" or "Smaskifa" (which translates to "The Single"), as it is known, is split into Part A, B, and C. Part A begins with a backward vocal loop not unlike "Everything In Its Right Place." Trumpets enter and it all loops upon itself until it fades into Part B with Jonsi's reverbed vocals sounding like he's moaning "Who are you?" repeatedly. Drummer, Orri’s piano solo then moves the piece into Part C with its pulsing stringed ambient texture. It's all very beautiful, but in the end it feels aloof and disengaging; too icy for its own good.


But nobody buys a single nowadays without more than just one decent b-side, heck even full length albums today are being packaged with DVDs as incentives to pry the kids away from the Napster clones and into the record aisles. With this single, it feels as if the songs are the tacked on extras, and the DVD is the real meat; the DVD alone is worth the seven dollars. Sigur Rós's three videos to date, "Svefn-G-Englar," "Viõrar Vel Til Loftárasa" and "Untitled 1" are provided in all their pristine, handicapped, homoerotic, apocalyptic glory. Both "Svefn" and "Viõrar" were filmed in Iceland, and it shows; vast crags and green hills abound. In "Svefn" the Iceland Perlan Theater Group, comprised of actors afflicted with Downs Syndrome, leap and twirl, gyrate and smooch in the expansive field. The highlight, of course, is the ultra-slow-mo lip locking at the end. "Viõrar" treads the same sort of thematic territory, but with more of a cinematic feel. Opening with a shot of a young boy being abused by his "manly" father for playing with dolls, the boy soon finds solace in his friend, who returns the dolls to him. The vignettes of the two boys rolling in the grass and clasping each others hands while recumbent, along with the boiling hatred on the fathers face as he yanks his son off the other boy as they are gently lip locked in the middle of the soccer field will make even the most conservative Republican sympathetic (I can vouch). "Untitled 1" is, well, cheesy, and unfitting for the music it accompanies. A normal school day is interrupted by recess, an apocalyptic recess with black cinder ashes as snow and a bright red sky for a sun. Of course, it's suppose to be dystopic, but in reality it's simply pessimistic.


From a band that began as a promising goth-Cocteau Twins rip-off (see Von), Sigur Rós's progression has been one that is as curious as it is frustrating. If the Hlemmur soundtrack and these new b-sides are any indication of what chilly path the quartet are heading, it's further into an emotional minimalism that will remain vehemently emotive, no matter how minimal it becomes.