No form of music till now, with the possible exception of the electronic melancholies of Ulrich Schnauss, captures that pure essence of music for me, that prompts indescribable feelings of bittersweet memories to float vividly in front of my eyes, that sets my heart, my lungs and every part of my body thumping with excitement and anticipation, that combines rhythm and progression into a distinctive form of artistic expression, and that is able to lull me simultaneously into the darkest of corridors and the brightest of gardens.Watching Sigur Rós perform on stage was undeniably one of the greatest moments of my life. The audience at United Palace Theater, New York, was mostly comprised of people my age, and suffice it to say, at the end of two hours, we were drained of every possible emotion known to man. Testament to the fact that music is universal, I'm pretty sure very few people in the audience actually understand the lyrics of Sigur Rós, partly because the songs are sung in a mixture of icelandic and "hopelandic". But matter it does not, since we all connected and related to the music in ways far more ethereal than just its vocal interpretation.
Beautiful and breathtaking in scale and form, Hoppipola is that one song I screamed at that night. Riding back in the New York subway amidst hundreds of faces, a sight I found to be relatively uncommon even in that densely populated city, I was ecstatic that night. I had finally experienced true beauty.
