Released in conjunction with a behind-the-scenes DVD,
Go Live sees
Sigur Rós frontman
Jónsi attempt to re-create the orchestral folk-pop of his debut album,
Go, in front of an unusually polite but receptive live audience. Recorded at Belgium's Ancienne Belgique at the beginning of his 2010 tour, with a smattering of performances taken from one of his final dates at the Brighton Dome, it's a task that the Icelandic artist passes with flying colors, as his four-piece band somehow manages to produce the same expansive sound as composer
Nico Muhly's original arrangements, while his astonishing dreamlike falsetto appears even more impressive without the aid of any studio polish. With only one solo album to his name, the 14-track set is bulked up with sprawling extended versions of its nine numbers, including the ten-minute rendition of "Grow Till Tall," but it's the five new compositions that will intrigue the fans who didn't get to witness the rather elaborate visual spectacle. In keeping with the set list's theme of first half melancholic, second half upbeat, the fingerpicking "Stars in Still Water," slow-building "Icicle Sleeves," and heartbreaking "Saint Naive" are the kinds of atmospheric hymnal ballads his band has built a career on, but -- showcasing his experimental tendencies -- "New Piano Song" is a slightly chaotic and perhaps unfinished fusion of clattering percussion and sprightly piano chords, while "Sticks and Stones" is an emotionally stirring performance of his contribution to the Oscar-nominated animation How to Train Your Dragon. Of course, like Iceland's most famous musical export,
Björk,
Jónsi's distinctive mystical tones are still perhaps an acquired taste, but like his female compatriot,
Go Live suggests that no country appears to do otherworldly avant-garde pop any better. ~ Jon O'Brien