Aquarius Records: Search Results for Artist: Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson

Aquarius Records: Search Results for Artist: Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson

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IMPORTANT (Please read to avoid confusion):
Some items below may be tagged with a bold, red, all-caps "out of print/unavailable" notice. This does NOT mean that all other items not so tagged are, in fact, in stock -- or for that matter, in print and available, though there's a good chance they are. Some folks get confused on this point, and we can see why, so please read this for further clarification and other important before-you-order information. Unlike some mailorder websites, we don't have an electronic inventory system linked to our site, so you can't be sure of what we actually have or don't have in stock at any given moment without asking us -- please email our mailorder department for availability status -- or better yet, just go ahead and place your order using our shopping cart function and we'll get back to you with the status of each item. If you have general non-mailorder questions, email the store.

album cover SIGMARSSON, SIGTRYGGUR BERG A Little Lost (Bottrop-Boy) cd 16.98
Another marvelous album from Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, one of the founding members of the Icelandic experimental / electronica ensemble Stilluppsteypa. Generally speaking, the themes of contradiction and tension that run through Stilluppsteypa's recordings also appear in the solo work of Sigmarsson, although he spends much more time allowing all of his ideas to unravel, slowly articulating each sound before offering semiotic and / or acoustical counterpoints. "A Little Lost" opens with a fluttering drone from a digitally enhanced church organ sounding quite similar to the sounds heard on "Ship" his sublime debut for Trente Oiseaux. Flicking in and out of audibility, these drone hamonics subtly couple with a quiet smoldering of static to offer an expanse of lulling sound. Throughout the album, Sigmarsson slowly dismantles the hypnotic atmosphere, first with pronounced lapses of the drones in favor of delicate textural sounds, then through a series of repeated chunks of elemental grit sliding backwards and forwards against the grain of the drone, and climaxing with a tumultous blast of digital noise shaped into offkilter metal riffs which abruptly cut to some drunk yokel barking the alarm call from a German U-boat. Sigmarsson's genius becomes apparant in how he has moved from the calm beginning of the album to this abrasive pinnacle with a self-contained intelligence and sly continuity in sound construction. The album returns to a sense of calm through the final track, a lengthy remix of mutant minimalism provided by Irr.App.Ext, the sorely under-represented project of Santa Cruz artist Matt Waldron. Very, very nice!
RealAudio clip: "My Treasure Ship"
RealAudio clip: "The Day Microphones Came To Life..."

SIGMARSSON, SIGTRYGGUR BERG A Long Wait Produces Nothing Further (ERS) lp 13.98

SIGMARSSON, SIGTRYGGUR BERG Ship (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson is a member of the transplanted Icelandic trio Stilluppsteypa, whose work has evolved over the past decade from avant-rock wackiness to studied drone / glitch work but has always maintained an off-kilter and at times absurdist approach toward their concepts. "Ship" is Sigmarsson's debut solo recording and continues in the minimalist direction that Stilluppsteypa has taken recently. Sigmarsson's album uses the metallic hull of a half buried ship as the source material for this album. Sigmarsson's "Ship" austerely floats through a gradually shifting topography of delicate, complementary harmonics, which come close to the more active drone moments from the latest Bernhard Gunter records.
RealAudio clip: "Ship"

album cover SIGMARSSON, SIGTRYGGUR BERG This One Comes Highly Recommended (Fire Inc) cd 16.98
While the majority of contemporary digital minimalists furrow their brows while contemplating which filter to tweak in order to get the perfect attenuation of a completely inaudible sound, a few practitioners of minimalism have managed to dig a little deeper and revolt. Known best for his membership in the Icelandic ex-patriot ensemble Stilluppsteypa, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson is one odd-ball minimalist who presents his delicate electro-acoustic compositions as exercises in Dadaist aburdity. Investigating Sigmarsson's aesthetics, you will find an exceptional album of microsounds, loaded with scraping textures of metal grinding against metal, complemented by tone-float purities that are expanded through timestretch / sinewave / glitch manipulation only to collapse into low-end rumbles, the sort usually found within Francisco Lopez's work. Sigmarsson's debut recording -- the transcendently beautiful "Ship" -- got Bernhard Gunter's stamp of approval as it was released on his Trente Oiseaux label, yet "This One Comes Highly Recommended" is perhaps even more interesting and definitely more active.
The artwork is a series of poorly shot photographs of urban detritus, grimy hallways, discarded plastic bags, refrigerators filled with frozen meat, empty bottles of vodka, children's drawings, and even a portrait of Sigtryggur after an extended bender. Not the most readily discernable collection of images, but provides the sense that Sigmarsson still views himself as the chaos-loving Icelandic punk who founded Stilluppsteypa a decade ago. Match the music and the images with such idiosyncratic titles as "If I Remember, I Have Always Been Certain" or "The Sometime Charm," and Sigmarrson has developed an intriguing set of semiotic puzzles that may or may not have any solutions. When asked by Rob Young of The Wire if his Stillupsteyppa was willfully obscurist, his obvious answer was "In a way we are astronauts, we are filling in the missing gaps." Anyway, this is an album the more than lives up to its title.
RealAudio clip: "Everything Will Be Ready In Good Time"
RealAudio clip: "Not Sure About This One Anymore"
RealAudio clip: "If I Remember, I Have Always Been Certain"

album cover WALDRON, M.S., STEVEN STAPLETON, SIGTRYGGUR BERG SIGMARSSON, JIM HAYNES, & R.K. FAULHABER The Sleeping Moustache (The Helen Scarsdale Agency) cd 15.98
You know it's gotta be an amazing record when we start a review by stating "we don't know where to begin with this record" and then we blather on and on for another 500 words pretty much demonstrating that while we may not where to begin, we certainly have a lot to say. And that totally applies to The Sleeping Moustache, the latest release from the enigmatic Helen Scarsdale Agency. The most well known of these five audio contortionists is Steven Stapleton who is the brains behind Nurse With Wound, who convolutedly reconstitute Surrealism, avant-garde aesthetics, and krautrock expressivity, resulting in some of the most profoundly brilliant and disturbing records we've ever heard. Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson is one of the drunken pilots of Stilluppsteypa, an Icelandic project of electro-absurdity capable of magnificent minimalism. M.S. Waldron is responsible for irr. app. (ext.), (an unwieldy moniker for sure) which has produced an amazing body of post-Surrealist expressivity in recent years. When he's not manning the fron counter here at Aquarius, Jim Haynes has developed a peculiar knack for rust-inflected dronescaping, and finally R.K. Faulhaber, who is the mystery man amongst the bunch, although we've been told his unpublished works offer a byzantine array of mutilated sonic collages. The album that these five produced is a weighty proposition to say the least, with detours a plenty within this mangled concoction of delirious dronescaping punctuated with glossalaic vocalizations. Delicate plinks and plonks sprinkled across sublime, gaping tones which transition to a convulsive beauty with mechanical spasms and nightmarish creakings. Throughout The Sleeping Moustache, ghostly reminders of each of the contributors' refined aesthetics emerge as a Gordon knot of convoluted logic, unsettling shifts between horror and comedy, psychological instability, and disquieting soundscapes. If you're even remotely a fan of Nurse With Wound or irr. app. (ext.) or Stilluppsteypa, this album is not just recommended... it's absolutely required.
MPEG Stream: "Sprawled Naked Across A Piano"
MPEG Stream: "A Few Items Known As Children"
MPEG Stream: "Oh Sir, I'm Scared"

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