“We’d been messing about with it for so long that we said, ‘Let’s stop thinking and let go of it’”: Sigur Rós, a discredited medieval poem and the end of Heaven and Earth

Kjartan Sveinsson (L), Georg Holm (C) and Orri Pall Dyrason (R) of Sigur Rós during a rehearsal of Odin's Raven Magic in Paris, 28 September 2004. (Photo by MAXIMILIEN LAMY / AFP).

In 2020 Sigur Rós released Odin’s Raven Magic, a live album based on a medieval Icelandic poem that had been discredited before being re-evaluated. Written and first performed 18 years earlier, it saw the post-rockers collaborate with a number of leading lights of their country’s art scene. The band’s Georg Hólm took Prog behind the scenes.

“We’ve never felt any pressure from any labels,” says Sigur Rós bassist Georg Hólm with a gentle yet icy firmness. “They know when they take us aboard that we do what we want do to. It’s always come naturally to us – it’s not often we go in and say, ‘We want to make this kind of record.’ We write a bunch of songs and then realise, ‘We have a full record here; we should release it.’