Sigur Rós's ( )

33⅓ Main Series #99

by Ethan Hayden

Words like "inspiring," "expansive," and "moving" are regularly used to describe Sigur Rós's ( ), and yet the only words heard on the record itself are a handful of meaningless nonsense syllables. The album has no title—or rather, its title is no title: just an empty pair of parentheses. The intention being that listeners will fill in the parentheses with their own title, their own interpretation of the sounds on the record. The CD sleeve consists of twelve pages that are essentially blank, lacking song titles, liner notes or production credits. Instead, it contains only semi-translucent frosted images of abstract natural scenes (tree branches, clouds, etc.), on which the listener is free to inscribe their own notes—or no notes at all. And then there are the lyrics, sung in a deliberately unintelligible tongue called "Hopelandic" which the band invites listeners to interpret freely.

Ethan Hayden's book doesn't try to fill in the gaps between the album's parentheses, but instead explores the ways in which listeners might attempt to do so. Examining the communicative powers of asemantic language, the book asks whether music can bring sense to nonsense. What happens to the voice when it stops singing conventional language: does it simply become another musical instrument, or is it somehow more "human"? What role does space play on ( )? And how do we interpret music that we cannot possibly understand, but feel very deeply that we do?

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

169 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Ethan Hayden was born in Poughkeepsie, NY, but raised primarily in the North Texas area. In 2008, he graduated from the University of North Texas with B.M.s in Composition and Theory, and recently received his M.A. in composition from the University at Buffalo. His principal composition teachers include Cort Lippe, Jeffrey Stadelman, Joseph Klein, Andrew May, and David Bithell. Still at UB, he is currently a Ph.D. Candidate, in the process of completing his dissertation. Ethan is the Associate Director of Wooden Cities, a Buffalo-based contemporary music ensemble, and is active as a performer, regularly presenting new and experimental works for voice. His book on Sigur Rós's ( ) for the 33⅓ series was published by Bloomsbury in August 2014.

Reviews

[Christian Harfman]

I really think I just don't like this style of book. I think I expected maybe a bit more insight but came out of it feeling like I don't know much more about the album than I did going in.

There's a surprisingly apt reference to "dancing about architecture" at the end that checks out. This book felt "ambient", for better or worse.

[Nikki Stafford]

( ) is my absolute favourite album, with Track 8 being my all-time favourite song. I’ve had this book forever and finally got around to reading it. I was surprised by how academic it was, though seeing the author was pursuing his PhD in music at the time, it makes more sense. I wasn’t into the first half of the book, which gave a complete history of language and nonsense in philosophy and children’s literature (but not in a fun way) and found myself skimming parts of it… but the second half of the book was excellent, when the author began to focus on the music itself and describing the instrumentation, the meaning behind the rises and falls of each song, and how the band recorded the album. I loved the second half of the book.

[Matthew Peck]

"( )" is my favorite record by Sigur Ros, a band that I've adored for 23 years in spite of not understanding any of their lyrics. This book made me feel better about said lack of understanding, maybe even proud. Readers hoping for a track-by-track account of the recording and arrangements and cultural impact of "( )" might be disappointed, because what Hayden delves into above all is the significance of Hopelandic, the nonsense language in which the album's vocals are sung. At times this gets into more academic territory than the average 33 1/3 - how many books about 2000s rock get into Theodor Adorno? - but it's not dry. It's an exceptional tribute to ambiguity in art.

[John]

( )
There is a group of musicians
Who composed beautiful songs
And the singer invented a new language
With words free of any meaning
Why?
They wanted the listener
To create his or her own meaning
When I first heard the words
I assumed it was a foreign language
But I could understand from the context
The sounds of the instruments
Blended with the incoherent syllables
Formed something I could relate to
Something beautiful

This is an interesting book about language, and I would have enjoyed more information about the band behind the music too.

[Nathan]

Well, I hate to say this, but this series has lost its luster over the last several releases. This one in particular felt like the author just wanted to hear his own voice/give a lecture on linguistics. Sure, there's interesting material in that discussion, but in no way did it connect me to the album at hand; it almost felt as if there weren't any ties to the album at all...if it weren't for the section titled "Space," I'd offer a zero star review.

[Kathleen]

I didn't need to read someone's dissertation on linguistics. The first part of the book did actually deal with a couple of the songs from ( ), but then the middle (and longest) part was just painful with the said linguistics discussion, and then the last chapter returned to the idea behind this series and talked about one song and it was actually interesting. I bought this book for a friend who is a huge Sigur Ros fan, and I can't wait to get rid of this book.

[Rich]

Fascinating discussion of the entomology of nonsense or auxiliary languages, like Esperanto, or, in the case of this record, Hopelandish. The band wanted to focus on each listener interpreting the music in their own way, so they invented a language just for singing... decenters the lyrics and centers the experience and the feeling the music invokes. Not your normal "the band went into the studio and set the knobs to this level" reading experience... be ready to learn.

[Seamus Thompson]

Some interesting nuggets about the band and some intriguing observations about Hopelandic, their made-up language, but overall this book is very heavy on linguistic theory, etc.

[Christopher]

When I pick up a book about Sigur Rós I don’t expect a linguistic discussion of Vonlenska, but here we are. It was interesting, but not what I wanted from this, so three stars it is.

[Zak]

It was sometimes too preoccupied with linguistics and Sigur Rós’s cool-fake Hopelandic language, but the chapter on space and dynamics was æðislegt.

[Brad]

Quit at p. 67

[James Piazza]

Ethan Hayden is a linguistics expert, composer and performer currently pursuing a Ph.D. in music at the University at Buffalo, US. I had the pleasure of attending one of his performances of his work, "…ce dangereux supplément…" in 2015. The work is a set of phonetic studies for voice, video, and electronics in which Hayden makes a wide range of vocal sounds, none of which are coherent expressions of any known language.

This made Hayden a fitting author to tackle Sigur Ros' ( ) album for an edition of the popular 33 1/3 book series. The parenthetical album is sung entirely in the nonsense Hopelandic language created by the members of Sigur Ros.

So what does one write about an album with no discernible theme or statement? And how would one begin to describe the nonsense sounds of the Hopelandic language? Over the course of 150 pages, Hayden expertly addresses these questions, and presents both a critical analysis of Hopelandic and a philosophical perspective on the recording itself. The book adds a fascinating critical dimension to the album and works like it and it aims to help listeners approach these works with a greater sense of understanding.

[Jeff]

I'd say that I went into this expecting something specific, but, like how I typically go into Sigur Ros albums, I really went in with an open mind, and that was definitely a benefit.

This specific book is definitely about the third album from the Icelandic band, but it really more just provides a framework to discuss linguistics, language, and, in a way, lyrical expectations in music. It's a very dense book for what it is, and the result is a fairly informative, almost academic read framed around indie rock music.

Definitely worth reading if you're into discussion on languages, certainly worth a look if you're a Sigur Ros fan.

[Simon Sweetman]

A far-too-clever book about the concepts of language and space and what you, as listener, bring to an album. I wanted more about the music and textures myself. But a nice reminder to go back to a great album. And a pretty dazzling linguistic analysis all the same.

[Jamison Spencer]

Didn't have much to say about the record. More of an academic history of made up language and nonsense lyrics.

[Daniel]

I enjoyed what felt to me like an academic but still accessible examination of semantics and linguistics in regards to what is one of my favorite albums of all time.

[Robert]

Definitely the brainiest volume in the series!