Jónsi initially thought when he was working on the album ‘Go’ he would be making a low-key, acoustic album until, as he says, “somewhere along the line, it just sort of exploded.” That explosion resulted in sheer aural fireworks. It is not a straight ahead pop record, nor rock, folk, ambient or electronic, it encompasses all of these to create an expansive musical palette that’s been brought to life by Jónsi alongside a number of free-spirited collaborators.
These include, Nico Muhly, the Philip Glass protégé who is renowned for his work with Björk, Antony & the Johnsons, Bonnie “prince” billy and Grizzly bear. Muhly has arranged all the songs on ‘Go’, bringing strings, brass and woodwind to dance playfully alongside his offbeat piano playing. In addition he incorporated into the mix the percussive genius of Samuli Kosminen, whose drumming powers many of the songs along, and you have a sonic landscape that bears little relation to anything else around today, yet explodes from the speakers with sheer happiness and wonder, wide-eyed and eager to be heard.
Within every colour of the palette in which this album paints for the listener there are wild cross- rhythms, syncopated flute harmonics, layering of delayed echo voices as if travelling across a vast landscape. The symphonic soundscapes are combined with a rhythmic sensation of train’s engine running.
An article by James Killingsworth describes Grow till tall "a beautiful, the moody, operatic drama" and Hengilas—"a track so intimately arranged that you can distinctly hear the steady-droning horn players gasping periodically for breath—tell an incomplete story."
Although in the classical era the texture of works were typically known to be homophonic, here, in this album the texture is additive, which relates to rock music. However the components of this texture are typically from the classical period i.e. the piece begins with monophony or homophony but gradually becomes polyphonic through the layering of timbres. Especially, as his voice unlike popular music today whereby the vocals seem to polish the song off by creating hook lines for audience members out there, his experimental vocal timbre (large range) just becomes another ingredient into the mix and is treated as a branch of the piece, an equal instrument.
An article by James Killingsworth describes Grow till tall "a beautiful, the moody, operatic drama" and Hengilas—"a track so intimately arranged that you can distinctly hear the steady-droning horn players gasping periodically for breath—tell an incomplete story."
Although in the classical era the texture of works were typically known to be homophonic, here, in this album the texture is additive, which relates to rock music. However the components of this texture are typically from the classical period i.e. the piece begins with monophony or homophony but gradually becomes polyphonic through the layering of timbres. Especially, as his voice unlike popular music today whereby the vocals seem to polish the song off by creating hook lines for audience members out there, his experimental vocal timbre (large range) just becomes another ingredient into the mix and is treated as a branch of the piece, an equal instrument.
Check out this article by James Killingsworth on Jonsi.. http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2010/04/jonsi-go.html
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