20 Years After Takk…, Sigur Rós Keeps Having Fun

Looking back at the band’s seminal record with Georg Holm

“In a weird way, it almost feels longer ago,” says Sigur Rós bassist Georg Holm, speaking to me ahead of the 20th anniversary of Takk… on September 12, from Milan, where the band is playing a show within their new orchestral tour.

“With the record before that, (), The Bracket Album, we’ve been touring for years and years and years. It was a difficult record to make — you never saw your house and your family because we were either touring or in a studio. It was a lot of sacrifices,” Georg recalls.

“It was one of those records that in typical Sigur Rós style, we would record the whole thing, and we didn’t like it, and we would throw it away and re-record everything.”

“The funny thing is, all the records and all this time that we’ve been in the band, it does sort of blur a little bit — it all becomes one record in your head,” he continues. “But when reminiscing about the time we were recording it, I do remember that our producer, Ken Thomas, who sadly is not with us anymore, used to tell a story that we would decide we were going to use the first three weeks of April to record, and then the first two weeks he would just be sitting there waiting for us to show up, and nothing would happen. During the last week, we would come in like a storm and do all kinds of stuff. But at the same time, if the sun was shining, we would be out in the courtyard playing football instead of recording. We did waste a lot of time, but we’d been doing so much work all these years that we felt that was kind of necessary — just for the camaraderie and to do other things than just work. But it was one of those records that in typical Sigur Rós style, we would record the whole thing, and we didn’t like it, and we would throw it away and re-record everything. We’ve done that more than once, and that record was not an exception.”

Takk… album cover / Sigur Rós

Dancing to architecture

It was 20 years ago that the Grapevine got its hands on a stolen copy of Takk… and quickly realised the band had entered a new chapter. Before our call, I asked Georg to read our review, curious whether my colleagues from two decades ago captured what the album was really trying to reflect.

“I did read it,” Georg nods, “The first feeling I got was that that is not a review, that’s a dissection. I’m probably the worst person in the world to talk to about album reviews because I find them a really odd thing to do. I just don’t understand them, same with movie reviews. I mean, I love some movies that got shit reviews.”

He continues, “I kind of laughed out loud a little bit, because it’s kind of like a dissection of what happens in each song as if it were a scene in the movie? And I’m like, okay, the bass comes in at minute three. Why would I even want to know that?”

“I like to quote David Byrne, but I think he’s actually quoting someone else when he says that. So this is like a third-hand quote — ‘talking about music is like dancing to architecture.’ Listen to it and feel it. I don’t want to know what instrument plays what, although it can be fascinating. But again, that is just me. I have to admit that I found it really intriguing reading it, though.”

For me, Takk… is an era-defining album — just looking at its tracklist, each a hit on its own, I go back to the memories of listening to these songs for the first time. Georg smiles, “Takk… is definitely defining in many ways — it’s probably our most successful record, if you think about it like in the old days when people actually went outside, walked into a store and bought a thing that they would put in their players. It was the record that sold some million records, and it’s definitely defining in that way, and a great success. I really love that record, it has great moments.”

Forgotten bits

For the 20th anniversary of Takk…, the band is reissuing a special edition remaster, which includes three original Takk… era B-sides and two previously unreleased tracks, “Melrakki” and “Elfur.” The release comes with a special edition vinyl, with each song getting its own side for maximum sound quality.

“We always have little bits and pieces here and there that either don’t fit [anywhere], or that we really liked but were never able to finish and make a song out of them,” Georg says of the added tracks. “There will always be some little bits and pieces. It’s like at a tailor’s — there are always cutouts here and there. Even songs like “Hoppípolla” — it was one of those bits originally. It was one of those 10 little bits that just became a song.”

“Kjartan remembers these things really well. He has this memory glue in his brain,” says Georg, admitting that he himself would never remember those snippets even existed. “But why release them now? I think it’s time. They were never going to become bigger than they are, and they are nice. It’s a re-release, so I think it’s fitting to just put everything with it.”

Since Georg already brought up “Hoppípolla,” a song often dubbed Sigur Rós’s “money song” thanks to its widespread success and frequent presence in TV and film, including David Attenborough’s Planet Earth, I’m curious to find out how he feels about it now.

“We all really love that song, and we still play it live,” says Georg. “I mean, we had a working title for it, ‘The Hit Song,’ because we kind of knew that this will be a hit. I do remember playing this to our management, we just played the loop that we knew was going to be a hit and they kind of went, ‘are you insane?’ They didn’t get it, at least in my memory. It did become a song that we would constantly be hounded for it to be used in commercials and all these things, but we would always just say no.”

Georg stresses that “Hoppípolla” would never be used in something like a cigarette commercial, but when it comes to film, it’s a different creative field. “You do not say no to David Attenborough, who does that?”

“We get letters all the time of people getting married to it, and or a child being born to it,” he continues. “It’s beautiful, and I think that is one of the reasons why I don’t like reviews. Music has such meaning to a lot of people. If I got married to a song, or when my baby was born to a song, and then I read shit reviews about it, I would be offended, it becomes your song. But then again, it’s just music, you know? It’s frequencies.”

Speaking of hit songs, Georg adds their most played song at the moment isn’t in fact “Hoppípolla,” but something that has become a TikTok trend. “It’s called “Smáskifa” and it’s just a little piece. We used to play it live as a sort of an outro to the show. That’s what TikTok does and how things change,” he says.

“We’re playing a show tonight. We played a show last night, and we’re still playing songs from that album. We’re still playing “Hoppípolla.” We’re even playing songs from our first record Von. Sometimes it is a bit weird. You stand on stage and you’re playing a song that you wrote almost 30 years ago, and you kind of go, ‘what am I doing here?,’” Georg smiles. “When we formed the band back in 1994, I remember that we talked about that we would continue doing this as long as it’s fun. We’re still enjoying it. It’s still fun.”

Takk…(20th Anniversary Remaster) is now available on streaming platforms. The special collection vinyl can be ordered via Sigur Rós’s Bandcamp.