celebrating kurr

if you're like me, you hadn't heard of amiina until you went to see sigur ros (best icelandic band around...take that, bjork!), and you regretted the oversight for months. also known as sigur ros's backing string quartet, these four women can play more instruments than i know the names of. their sound is at once gentle and quirky, finding simple, cyclical melodies with unique sounds.

amiina put out their debut LP recently (because it was self-released, the date was somewhat iffy), and i managed to hop over to sandbag and get one of the 200 copies made. pretty sweet indeed. aside from making the bitchingest case ever (forget plastic and those damn irritating stickers), kurr, as this gem is called, is all new except for one song, "seoul," that great fan favorite from the seoul ep (it's the one with the musical saw).



to celebrate kurr's release, i'm posting this sweet 30 minute live set from icelandic TV. featuring old and new songs (plus people speaking icelandic), the visual quality is high and the audio quality even better. as you'll see in the video, their instruments include said musical saw, cello, violin, viola, some bells, water glasses, a couple different keyboards, a music box, an apple laptop, some xylophones, a guitar, and a casio keyboard from when i was a toddler.



i've managed to see amiina once sans sigur ros, at the bang on a can marathon in new york last summer, and, if anything, they're even more withdrawn than the 'ros, which makes them twice as intriguing. do yourself a favor and check them out.

tour dates available here.

amiina- "seoul." ep available at itunes and sandbag