VALTARI

After Inni, the band announce a period of “indefinite hiatus”. Jónsi makes a solo record, Go, and forms Riceboy Sleeps with boyfriend Alex Somers. The band return to create their most unhurried work, using recordings dating back to 2003. JÓNSI: The phrase “indefinite hiatus” was something our management came up with. We didn’t even know what it meant! Being in the band had been stressful. It was in everyone’s interest to take a breather. HÓLM: We’d basically been touring since 2000. We needed a break, and Jónsi was doing his solo stuff, which we were all happy about JÓNSI: I always made music outside the band. Because Sigur Rós always write as a band, there hasn’t traditionally been any outlet for anything you write on your own. Valtari was a way of pulling together all the strands of things we’d started with Kjartan. We’d done these sessions with the Sixteen Choir in

the mid-Noughties for an idea to make a choral record. That hadn’t gone anywhere, but was really beautiful. Then we’d made “Varúð” for the US remake of [Swedish horror

film] Let The Right One In, which ended up not getting used. We started to conceptualise an idea about making an ambient album and realised it was a potent idea we could pull together. It started out as almost a compilation of stuff from the cutting-room floor and ended up as something much more cohesive. SVEINSSON: I was a bit disappointed that it was released as a studio album. It was a bit of a deal breaker, actually, with management. I never pictured it as, “Hey, here’s the new Sigur Rós album!” But it turned out quite nice. JÓNSI: It was an ending, but also a beginning. Oddly, I think it stands up as a really good album.