Górecki’s Symphony No.3 (better known as Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs), as played by the London Sinfonietta in 1991, was the best-selling contemporary classical record across the 90s. In 1994, Sigur Rós formed in Reykjavík, first signing with the Sugarcubes-owned label Bad Taste. Now that Sigur Rós have become a signifier of high-class good taste, their eighth album – Átta is Icelandic for eight – indisputably shares its mood and DNA with Górecki’s fusion of the avant-garde and the tear-jerking.
It’d be daft to say it was on the same level, but structurally it whispers and murmurs, keeping its powder dry until, with a cathartic release, it lets out its tension like a storm breaking after much quietly stressful humidity. Which is, frankly, just as well, because for almost an hour it quivers along a thin line between boring and beautiful.
