Frontman’s Boyfriend Creative Catalyst For Sigur Rós’ Latest

It has been a long four years for fans of Sigur Rós, who've had to wait patiently for a new album. That wait that finally came to an end at the end of last month as the band issued their Valtari long-player, another release which has been widely praised for its epic beauty. Speaking with Time Off magazine this week, the band's bassist Georg Holm said a four year gap was never the band's intentions.

“This break was maybe a little bit longer than we expected; we did decide, after the last tour, we said we would take a year off, and it became four years really.”

But who knows how long we'd have had to wait if it weren't for Alex Somers, the American musician and producer who has, in more recent times, become best known as the boyfriend of Sigur Rós vocalist and guitarist Jón Þór “Jónsi” Birgisson. In the same interview, Holm said that Somers managed to refocus the band after they began to lose their way.

“It did sort of slowly become more focused, but not until the last session that we did, when we finally just went in and said, 'We have to finish this. We have some good music here; we need to finish it.' At the same time, we said, 'We need someone to help us do it,' and we got Alex Somers, who's Jonsi [Þór Birgisson]'s boyfriend, to help us with it, and I think he was definitely a huge help on this. I think he managed to focus all of us together and realise what we had. He was definitely a very big part of this album, and in focusing us together.”

Read the full interview, in which Holm also reveals why Valtari is the first Sigur Rós record he has played on his home stereo, right here.