Album review: Jonsi and Alex – ‘Riceboy Sleeps’

What's the Hopelandish for 'tedious, self-indulgent hippy twaddle'?

Jón Þór Birgisson’s side-project targets a narrow demographic: those who find his band [a]Sigur Rós[/a]

to be too fast-paced. ‘Riceboy Sleeps’ is a tedious album of orchestral drones, produced by manipulating piano, strings and choir samples on solar-powered laptops (in – yes – a Hawaiian commune). The nine tracks average over seven minutes each, and important things are absent: beats, narrative, any semblance of a point. Its most tolerable pieces sound like waves lapping at a beach; others evoke accidental calls from unlocked phones. Sigur Rós once set a gold standard in pomposity by writing songs in an invented language. In releasing this, Birgisson outdoes himself.

Niall O’Keeffe

Click here to get your copy of Jonsi & Alex’s ‘Riceboy Sleeps’ from the Rough Trade shop

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