Customer Reviews

Riceboy Sleeps

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I always had a feeling that jonsi was not of this world... now i know. What Jonsi (Jón Þór Birgisson)-sigur ros' frontman can do with music is not like anything i have ever heard. and it is beautiful.

I have been a fan of 'ambient' music for some time now, i'm sure this album will get lumped in the ambient genre somewhere, but it has something that sets it apart from the others - layers. layers and depth. It is hard to put into words just what it is, but i hear sounds of my childhood in these songs. i hear everyday sounds shimmering in the backround and it is very comforting and it takes me to another place.

watch the video for 'all the big trees', or listen to 'daniell in the sea' (my favorite song, but i love them all) and you may see what i mean.

I would suggest this album naturally to any sigur ros (or even amiina) fans, or anyone that would just like to escape to another world created by Jonsi and Alex.

This is not a Sigur Ros album, but it could easily pass as one. Just from hearing this you can tell Jonsi plays a huge role in that band. It keeps that same "otherworldly beauty" throughout that all Sigur Ros albums possess. Amiina even plays strings throughout the album. However, Riceboy Sleeps is a much more ambient affair. All of it was recorded with real instruments and sounds. So there's no synth work or anything of the sort on here that most other ambient artists use. This alone separates Jonsi and Alex from the rest of the pack and gives them a more beautiful, organic sound. If you're a fan of ambient music or Sigur Ros, then you'll most likely enjoy this release. Keep in mind though, this is solely background music. It's minimal in sound with subtle changes throughout, very much like Sigur Ros' first album "Von". The perfect soundtrack for when you feel like laying down and relaxing. It'll drift your mind to another, much more beautiful place. 5/5

This isn't music. It's a flowering. Best heard through a set of great headphones as there's a lot of space and surround in this album. The layering of sound and instrument is phenomenal. It's also an excellent album to play if you have trouble falling asleep.

I am a huge Sigur Ros fan. They are the soundtrack to my life. Granted, they sing in Icelandic so I cannot decipher the lyrics... but I don't care. They are the modern day version of the Tallis Scholars. Angels singing you into ecstasy. Beatific voices and such joyful, transcendent music. This is a sideline for two of the members, Jon Birgisson and Alex Somers. There is a children's choir and Amiina contribute the strings. In the day to day stressful life that we all live this cd provides solace. You will feel grateful to know that there are musicians who can create such beauty.

RICEBOY SLEEPS by Jonsi & Alex is one of the most glorious c.d.'s I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. The following is from the book The Poetics of Reverie by Gaston Bachelard, which contains a quote by Franz Hellens: "Childhood is not a thing which dies within us and dries up as soon as it has completed its cycle. It is not a memory. It is the most living of treasures, and it continues to enrich us without our knowing it ... Woe to the man who cannot remember his childhood, recapture it within himself, like a body inside his own body, a new blood in the old blood: he is dead as soon as it leaves him." The music on this album, more than any I've ever heard, is the musical conduit that validates the truth of this quote. Music has the power to transport. If you are in need of, or have allowed yourself to become separated from that " most living of treasures," I cannot too highly recommend to you .... RICEBOY SLEEPS.

Nothing like this. Maybe Alina by Arvo Part. Long monodic sounds mixed with familiar noises, and a long generous yarn of beautiful melodies and space, enough space to create your own songs, noises or landscapes of notes.
Like gentle light for paintings so is this music for the soul.

"Riceboy Sleeps" is an album that has reportedly been in development for five years by Sigur Ros' main songwriter, Jon Birgisson and his boyfriend Alex Somers. "Riceboy Sleeps" features frequent Sigur Ros collaborators, Amiina and a children's choir on most songs to help flesh out the proceedings. While not that much different from his main gig, "Riceboy Sleeps" seems to be focused on the quieter moments rather than the dramatic swell that Sigur Ros often invokes in their songs. The result is an album that could be perceived as ambient in a sense, but not in that sonic wallpaper style as there is a bit of variety in the proceedings.
Most of the songs on "Riceboy Sleeps" fall well within the realm of introspective numbers that usher in a sense of calm. All of the songs are wordless with the exception of a brief closer provided by Jonsi on "Indian Summer" which leaves the message of the music more open to personal interpretation. "Riceboy Sleeps" is often reflective and melancholy that makes it perfect for days when you feel that the world is against you.

I'd give this album 6 stars if I could. 5 stars isnt enough. It is brilliant.

I put this album on all the time when I'm using Salvia Divinorum, Ayahuasca, or Mescaline-containing Cactus.

And even when I'm sober!

It's that good.

After release a couple of singles (one of them, "Happiness", included in "Dark Was The Night" compilation and that they signed still as Riceboys Sleeps) "Jónsi" Þór Birgisson (Sigur Rós) and Alex Somers (Parachutes) finally delivered his first album "Riceboy Sleeps" with which they materialize the musical side of this collaboration initially conceived as a visual art project (Somers, Birgisson's boyfriend, has designed much of the art of the Sigur Rós albums) but now naturally extended to music field. Recorded exclusively with acoustic instruments and the participation of Amiina string quartet, Sigur Ros regular collaborators, and the Kópavogsdætur chorus, "Riceboy Sleeps" is a record dense and relaxed at the same time in which Birgisson and Somers not only do not stray the sound of their "main" bands but making it even more radicalized to create quite atmospheric and ethereal music. OK, let say this: next to "Riceboy Sleeps", "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" the last album by Sigur Rós, could be almost considered a conventional pop album. Over little more than an hour "Jónsi" and Alex create long, dreamy, barely whispered soundscapes that gently swaying between ambient and experimental music. At first listen "Riceboy Sleeps" risks to end up being one of those records that are played as background music in "relax sessions", but it's worth listen it with attention, let your guard down and being involved to enjoy the almost celestial atmospheres created by Birgisson and Somers.

As i wrote in [...]

Jonsi and Alex make beautiful music together...and the cd's not bad, either. ;) Jokes aside, these partners have created an intensely beautiful album. It's wonderfully versatile, too...so far, I've listened to it while getting a massage, hanging out on a boat at the lake, background music while reading and driving, and it was the music I had playing while the guests at my wedding were being seated. Fans of Sigur Ros should definitely check it out, as well as people who like instrumental music but are not especially drawn to classical. Very listenable, A+ in my book.