Sounds of Iceland and Singapore

Rock band Sigur Ros team up with home-grown Resound Collective for local leg of global tour

- Eddino Abdul Hadi

Icelandic rockers Sigur Ros have played in Singapore several times, but their upcoming shows at the Esplanade Theatre on Feb 25 and 26 will have a local twist.

The post-rock band, famous for making ethereal music that is a melange of rock, ambient and neo-classical, will be performing with home-grown orchestra Resound Collective.

The concerts are part of Sigur Ros' global 30th anniversary tour, for which they will perform grand orchestral rearrangements of their songs in collaboration with local orchestras. Besides Singapore, the Asian leg of the tour includes stops in Japan and Taiwan.

Sigur Ros bassist Georg Holm tells The Straits Times in a Zoom interview in November: "It's been so much fun going to different cities and playing with local orchestras, because each has something different and each adds something to our music. That is unexpected to us, and it's always very exciting to get to play with new orchestras everywhere."

The band also comprise singer and multi-instrumentalist Jonsi Birgisson, 49, and multi-instrumentalist Kjartan Sveinsson, 47.

Holm, 48, says the trio rehearse with the local orchestras only a day before or on the morning of a show.