Krunk Schallplatten & CDs

Review: The soundtrack to a forthcoming BBC documentary 'The Show Of Shows', 'Circe' finds these two Sigur Ros members collaborating with Icelandic composer Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson and the band's live guitarist Kjartan Holm on an evocative and expansive collection of soundscapes that summon up the drama and intrigue of their companion work - a history of vaudeville, circuses and carnivals. With melancholic choral arrangements, stentorian percussive ballast and glitchy electronic experimentation playing an equal part, this is a soundtrack work with a good deal more than mere ambience to recommend it, and one fit to appeal to fans of the questing spirit of Mogwai and Radiohead as well as the main protagonists' dayjob.

Review: Jonsi's third studio album, Obsidian, is now available on vinyl for the first time, following its initial release alongside his installation at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in NYC. Co-produced and mixed by Paul Corley and Nathan Salon, Obsidian delves into darker themes compared to its predecessor, Shiver. The album features ten tracks with evocative titles inspired by ashen landscapes, taking listeners on a sensory journey through erupting flares. Jonsi's masterful layering of vocals over orchestral passages blurs the boundaries between senses, creating a profound and immersive narrative experience.

Review: Jon Thor Birgisson (Sigur Ros) and his partner Alex Somers make brain cleansing and heavenly ambient as Jonsi & Alex. 10 years ago they put out cult classic "Riceboy Sleeps" and to mark the anniversary the whole album has been lovingly remastered across six slabs of wax. Taking the time to do nothing but sit back and sink deep into this album is a pleasure you will thank yourself for: its pastoral synths slowly wash over you while muted pads gently unfold, evolve and evaporate as barely-there voices from the Kopavogsdaetur Choir come in and out of focus next to smeared strings from Icelandic quartet Amiina. Perfection.

Review: There is a busy run of reissues of Sigur Ros albums planned this year. Valtari was the cult band's sixth outing back in 2021 on XL Recordings. The record was described by the band at the time as being the sound of 'an avalanche in slow motion.' They co-produced it themselves with Alex Somers in their native Reykjavik, Iceland. The sound is vast, often overwhelming you with waves of guitars that leave you breathless. It has long been out of print but now reappears on their own Krunk label on nice heavy wax.

Review: The year is 1999 and while the sounds of Ibiza lounge house and blistering trance dominate much of the radio waves, elsewhere in Europe something very special is taking form. At this point in time, Sigur Ros had only put out one album, Vonn, in 1997, and followers who joined more recently, when the Icelandic oddities broke into major TV advertising campaigns and movie scores, but haven't looked back at their origins, might be surprised at what that one sounded like. Altogether darker, much more cacophonous.


Aegis Byrjun would follow the groundbreaking but largely unsung debut (Vonn only sold 300 copies in their own country) with a groundbreaking moment that set a precedent for everything they have done since. This is where big brands like Nissan pricked up ears, mesmerised by a sound that's at once alien, yet also deeply human, huge but intimate, classical yet contemporary, and fundamentally focused on triggering emotions.

Review: Sigur Ros' fifth full-length LP (originally released in 2008) gets reissued by Piccadily Records this week, after having remained completely out of print worldwide for far too long. This 2xLP of post-modern ethereal folk is noted for being the band's first to be recorded, completed and toured all in the space of just one year - they had formerly toiled for years over their previous albums. It might also just be the best LP to highlight the band's 'realness'; the lyrics were originally meant to be in English, but they later returned to their own native Icelandic for a more authentic feel.

Review: Reykjavik-based noise quartet, Sigur Ros - translated to Victory Rose - sublime 1999 album Agaetis Byrjun turns 20 this year and to commemorate the legendary band have assembled two luxury box sets featuring all matter of demos, rarities and live recordings. There is also the option to just rebask in the limelight of A Good Beginning (Agaetis Byrjun) repress that's worth it alone for album opener "Svefn-g-englar" - a breathy 10-minute swoon through the ether of sweet harmony. Travel the rest of the album until you get to "Avalon" - one of the deepest classical requiems you can hope to hear. A sonic fortress of bizarre digital noises, weird drones, wispy vocals and breathtakingly radiant percussion, Agaetis Byrjun is a masterpiece of revolutionary proportions.

Review: Reykjavik-based noise quartet, Sigur Ros - translated to Victory Rose - sublime 1999 album Agaetis Byrjun turns 20 this year and to commemorate the legendary band have assembled two luxury box sets featuring all matter of demos, rarities and live recordings. There is also the option to just rebask in the limelight of A Good Beginning (Agaetis Byrjun) repress that's worth it alone for album opener "Svefn-g-englar" - a breathy 10-minute swoon through the ether of sweet harmony. Travel the rest of the album until you get to "Avalon" - one of the deepest classical requiems you can hope to hear. A sonic fortress of bizarre digital noises, weird drones, wispy vocals and breathtakingly radiant percussion, Agaetis Byrjun is a masterpiece of revolutionary proportions.

Review: It should come as no surprise that the latest from Icelandic musical fantasists Sigur Ros was originally composed in either the 14th or 15th Century, and is written in the Edda tradition, a term used to describe to manuscripts that together make up the main sources of Norse mythology and Skaldic poetry. After all, this is a band that have been singing in their own imagined tongue since before most people cottoned on to them.

It's certainly the group's most gothic effort to date, an orchestral epic that also features the artists and composers Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson, Steindor Andersen and Maria Huld Markan Sigfusdottir, whose collective CV includes pioneering musical composition with computers and Rimur chanting. Their combined efforts feel steeped such timeless atmosphere your peripheral vision might as well be catching torchlights flickering off solid stone walls. Another work of extraordinary beauty, then.

Review: Alex Somers has spent much of his hugely successful career either composing music for film and TV, or producing other artists. It's for that reason that it's taken him some time to deliver a debut solo album, though to make up for this he's simultaneously releasing two sets - Siblings and Siblings 2 - both of which feature music mostly recorded between 2014 and 2016. On Siblings, Somers dazzles with his versatility, offering a mixture of haunting, emotive and mind-altering compositions that frequently blur the boundaries between experimental electronica, neo-classical and ambient. The Los Angeles-based producer frequently combines swelling orchestration with crackly field recordings, ethereal vocalisations, immersive synthesizer sounds and off-kilter electronic sounds, resulting in a hazy, otherworldly musical journey that rewards repeat listens.

Review: Alex Somers has spent much of his hugely successful career either composing music for film and TV or producing other artists. It's for that reason that it's taken him some time to deliver a debut solo album, though to make up for this he's simultaneously releasing two sets - Siblings and Siblings 2 - both of which feature music mostly recorded between 2014 and 2016. Like its' predecessor, Siblings 2 makes extensive use of beguiling orchestration, disconnected vocals, gritty noise, fuzzy samples and experimental electronic sounds, offering an appealing and unearthly fusion of ambient, neo-classical and glitchy electronica that's both masterfully executed and genuinely immersive.