Sigur Ros - Agætis Byrjun (2LP)

Some records don’t just arrive, they drift into your life like weather. Ágætis byrjun did that for me back in the early 2000s, when a friend slipped it onto the shop system during a slow afternoon in a Melbourne record store and the room seemed to exhale. Sigur Rós had released the album in Iceland in 1999, with a wider rollout the following year, but it still felt like a secret then. The title translates to “a good beginning”, which sounds modest for something that ended up changing how a lot of us heard rock music.

The sound is unmistakable. Jón Þór “Jónsi” Birgisson’s bowed guitar has that eerie, keening tone that lands somewhere between a whale call and a church organ, then his airy falsetto drifts over it in Icelandic and wordless syllables. You get meaning from texture and movement as much as lyrics. The opener is more a sigh than a song, then Svefn-g-englar takes ten patient minutes to unfurl. On the face of it, not much happens. In your chest, everything does. The rhythm section keeps a slow heartbeat, and that glow keeps swelling until you’re completely inside it.

Ný batterí leans into a darker weight. The band found a battered cymbal on the street and built the track around its misshapen crash, which explains the metallic ache that hangs in the air. It’s an oddly human detail for music that gets tagged as celestial. Starálfur is the one I still catch people asking about at the counter, even now. Strings tiptoe in, Jónsi almost whispers, and then it blooms into one of those crescendos that sends you checking if the volume just crept up on its own. Years later it turned up in Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic, which made perfect sense. His films love colour the way this record loves light.

Viðrar vel til loftárása translates to “good weather for an airstrike”, and the music plays that contrast perfectly. It starts almost tender, then tension gathers like clouds on a summer afternoon, and the climax feels both triumphant and a little frightening. Olsen Olsen is the flip side, all lilting flute and wordless choral lines that sound like a village on a hillside somewhere, singing itself warm. The title track has a gentle sway that feels close and human. Then Avalon slips you out the door with a soft ambient haze. Even the sequencing feels considered, like they built a place and left paths through it.

Part of Ágætis byrjun’s charm is hearing a band settle into its skin. This was the early lineup with Jónsi on guitar and voice, Georg Hólm on bass, Kjartan Sveinsson on keys and woodwinds, and Ágúst Ævar Gunnarsson on drums. Georg keeps things grounded with simple lines that hold shape while everything else rises and falls. Kjartan colours the edges with piano, organ and little woodwind gestures. Ágúst plays with restraint and a lot of space, which makes the crescendos hit harder. You can tell they trusted quiet as much as noise.

The record caught ears well beyond Reykjavík. UK press and radio picked up on Svefn-g-englar and suddenly shows were selling out to people who couldn’t sing along but didn’t need to. A couple of tracks found second lives in film and TV. Starálfur in The Life Aquatic became a gateway for a new wave of fans. Svefn-g-englar showed up in Vanilla Sky. That slow creep into the culture suits the album’s temperament. It’s not built for hype. It’s built to last.

If you’re chasing Ágætis byrjun vinyl, you’re in luck. The 20th anniversary reissue in 2019 brought it back into easy circulation with care, and it’s one of those pressings where the room really opens up around the strings and bowed guitar. Quiet passages sit on a black background, then the peaks lift without turning brittle. It’s the sort of record that makes sense to own as an object, to pull out on a rainy Sunday when the kettle’s on. For anyone hunting Sigur Rós vinyl or looking to buy Sigur Rós records online, this is the starting point that still feels like a destination. If you’re digging through a crate of vinyl records Australia side, and you spot that ghostly baby on the cover, don’t overthink it. Take it home. Among Sigur Rós albums on vinyl, this one remains the heart of the story.

A lot of records fade to fond memories. This one keeps teaching you how to listen. That’s a good beginning by any measure.