Sigur Ros Start Work On New Album

Atmospheric Icelandic band Sigur Ros have commenced work on the follow-up to 2005's Takk.

According to a post on the group's website, the album is expected to be finished later this year. It remains to be seen whether the band will take a totally new direction with the album.

"We have finished recording a few songs but some more things need to be done," says bassist Georg "Goggi" Holm. "We don't know exactly where the album is heading yet."We are really just experimenting at this stage. Some of the songs we recorded are old songs which we had written a while ago, unreleased material which we never got a chance to finish. We decided it was time they were recorded."

Sigur Ros will perform a few shows in North America next month. The group are playing in Miami on Feb. 25 as part of the "Merce In Miami" festival honouring dance choreographer Merce Cunningham. The group will perform the music to Cunningham's "Split Sides" piece. The following night in New York, Sigur Ros will take part in a Tibet House fundraiser at Carnegie Hall alongside Philip Glass, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and new Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee, Patti Smith.

In related news, lead singer Jon Bor "Jonsi" Birgisson and his boyfriend, Alex Somers, have issued their own picture book titled Riceboy Sleeps. The limited-edition 48-page book was released in late November in Iceland and will likely be published internationally early this year. A new track and video titled "All The Big Trees" can be found on the Riceboy Sleeps website. The song is performed by Parachutes, a Somers side project that sounds quite similar to Sigur Ros.