Go (Jónsi album)
Encyclopedia
Go is the debut studio album by Icelandic musician
Jónsi
, frontman of the band Sigur Rós
. The album was released on April 5, 2010, through XL Recordings
, as reported by a downloadable track from the official site. The fourth track of the album, "Boy Lilikoi", was released for free from Jónsi's website, available to those subscribing to the website's mailing list.
According to a late May 26, 2009 post on Sigur Rós official site, the album features predominantly acoustic music and string arrangements from composer Nico Muhly
. The album was co-produced by Alex Somers
, Peter Katis
and Jónsi himself, during summer 2009, in Reykjavík
and Connecticut
. A worldwide tour across North America and Europe also took place upon the album's release from April–May 2010, featuring Jónsi performing songs from the album and a "unique, cinematic" performance stage designed by 59 Productions.
"Kolniður" was featured at the end of the Criminal Minds
sixth season episode Lauren and in a trailer for "Real Steel
". "Around Us" was included on the FIFA 11
soundtrack and the trailer for the "Disney" dub of "The Secret World of Arrietty".
, number twenty-three on the Billboard 200
in the United States, number six on the Belgian (Flanders
) Ultratop
chart, number thirty-one on the Swiss Albums Top 100
, and number eighty-four on the Dutch Mega Album Top 100
.
Japanese bonus track
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
Jónsi
Jón Þór Birgisson
Jón “Jónsi” Þór Birgisson is the guitarist and vocalist for the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós. He is known for his use of a cello bow on guitar and his falsetto voice. He is also blind in his right eye and is openly gay. His boyfriend Alex Somers has done much of the graphic design for...
, frontman of the band Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós is an Icelandic post-rock band with classicaland minimalist elements. The band is known for its ethereal sound, and frontman Jónsi Birgisson's falsetto vocals and use of bowed guitar. In January 2010, the band announced that they will be on hiatus. Since then, it has since been announced...
. The album was released on April 5, 2010, through XL Recordings
XL Recordings
XL Recordings is a British independent record label owned by Richard Russell. It originated as a 1989 offshoot of Beggars Banquet Records.Though only releasing an average of six albums a year, XL Recordings has worked with The Prodigy, Radiohead, The White Stripes, Dizzee Rascal, M.I.A., Vampire...
, as reported by a downloadable track from the official site. The fourth track of the album, "Boy Lilikoi", was released for free from Jónsi's website, available to those subscribing to the website's mailing list.
According to a late May 26, 2009 post on Sigur Rós official site, the album features predominantly acoustic music and string arrangements from composer Nico Muhly
Nico Muhly
Nico Muhly is a contemporary classical music composer, who has worked and recorded with classical and pop/rock musicians. He currently lives in the Lower East Side section of Manhattan in New York City.-Early years:...
. The album was co-produced by Alex Somers
Alex Somers
Alex Somers is an American visual artist and musician from Baltimore, Maryland. He is currently living in Reykjavík, Iceland with his boyfriend, Jón Þór Birgisson, the vocalist and guitar player for the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós. Somers is a founding member of the now defunct band...
, Peter Katis
Peter Katis
Peter Katis is an American record producer, engineer, mixer and musician.Working primarily out of his own residential studio in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Katis is best known for producing alternative and indie rock bands, especially for Fat Cat Records.-Biography:Katis attended New Canaan Country...
and Jónsi himself, during summer 2009, in Reykjavík
Reykjavík
Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...
and Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. A worldwide tour across North America and Europe also took place upon the album's release from April–May 2010, featuring Jónsi performing songs from the album and a "unique, cinematic" performance stage designed by 59 Productions.
"Kolniður" was featured at the end of the Criminal Minds
Criminal Minds
Criminal Minds is an American police procedural drama that premiered September 22, 2005, on CBS. The series follows a team of profilers from the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit based in Quantico, Virginia. The BAU is part of the FBI National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime...
sixth season episode Lauren and in a trailer for "Real Steel
Real Steel
Real Steel is a 2011 American science fiction film starring Hugh Jackman and directed by Shawn Levy. The film is based in part on the 1956 short story "Steel" by Richard Matheson, though Levy placed the film in U.S. state fairs and other "old-fashioned" Americana settings. Real Steel was in...
". "Around Us" was included on the FIFA 11
FIFA 11
FIFA 11 is the 18th title in Electronic Arts' FIFA series of football video games. Developed by EA Canada, it was published by Electronic Arts worldwide under the EA Sports label...
soundtrack and the trailer for the "Disney" dub of "The Secret World of Arrietty".
Reception
Go has received mostly positive reviews from critics, scoring a 77/100 on the music review aggregator website Metacritic. Most reviews praise Muhly's precise arrangements and Jonsi's flighty vocals, while a few lukewarm reviews discuss the album's lack of cohesion. The album has reached number twenty on the UK Albums ChartUK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
, number twenty-three on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
in the United States, number six on the Belgian (Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
) Ultratop
Ultratop
Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium, and it is also the name of most of those charts...
chart, number thirty-one on the Swiss Albums Top 100
Swiss Music Charts
The Swiss Music Charts are Switzerland's main music sales charts. The charts are a record of the highest-selling singles and albums in various genres in Switzerland.The Swiss Charts include:* Singles Top 75...
, and number eighty-four on the Dutch Mega Album Top 100
MegaCharts
MegaCharts is responsible for the composition and exploitation of a broad collection of official charts in the Netherlands, of which the Mega Top 50 and the Mega Album Top 100 are the most known ones. Mega Charts also provides information to the Stichting Nederlandse Top 40, of which the Dutch Top...
.
Track listing
- "Go DoGo DoGo Do is an extended play by the Icelandic singer Jónsi, the lead singer of Sigur Rós. Go Do was released on 22 March 2010 as the lead single from his debut solo album, Go...
" – 4:41 - "Animal ArithmeticAnimal Arithmetic"Animal Arithmetic" is a song by the Icelandic singer Jónsi, the lead singer of Sigur Rós. "Animal Arithmetic" was released on 24 May 2010 as the second single from Jónsi's debut solo album, Go. The song features lyrics in both English and Icelandic....
" – 3:24 - "Tornado" – 4:15
- "Boy Lilikoi" – 4:30
- "Sinking Friendships" – 4:42
- "Kolniður" – 3:56
- "Around Us" – 5:18
- "Grow till Tall" – 5:21
- "Hengilás" – 4:15
Japanese bonus track
- "Sinking Friendships (Acoustic)" – 4:00
- "Tornado (Acoustic)" – 3:57
Personnel
- Jón Þór BirgissonJón Þór BirgissonJón “Jónsi” Þór Birgisson is the guitarist and vocalist for the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós. He is known for his use of a cello bow on guitar and his falsetto voice. He is also blind in his right eye and is openly gay. His boyfriend Alex Somers has done much of the graphic design for...
– vocals, samplerSampler (musical instrument)A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...
, guitar, piano, ukuleleUkuleleThe ukulele, ; from ; it is a subset of the guitar family of instruments, generally with four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings....
, glockenspielGlockenspielA glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone... - Samuli Kosminen – drums, percussionPercussion instrumentA percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
, kalimba, harp - Nico MuhlyNico MuhlyNico Muhly is a contemporary classical music composer, who has worked and recorded with classical and pop/rock musicians. He currently lives in the Lower East Side section of Manhattan in New York City.-Early years:...
– piano, celesteCelestaThe celesta or celeste is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. Its appearance is similar to that of an upright piano or of a large wooden music box . The keys are connected to hammers which strike a graduated set of metal plates suspended over wooden resonators...
, glockenspiel, stringString instrumentA string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
arrangementArrangementThe American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...
, brassBrass instrumentA brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...
arrangement, windWind instrumentA wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator , in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into a mouthpiece set at the end of the resonator. The pitch of the vibration is determined by the length of the tube and by manual modifications of...
arrangement - Alex SomersAlex SomersAlex Somers is an American visual artist and musician from Baltimore, Maryland. He is currently living in Reykjavík, Iceland with his boyfriend, Jón Þór Birgisson, the vocalist and guitar player for the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós. Somers is a founding member of the now defunct band...
– guitar, piano, celeste, glockenspiel, sampler
Additional musicians
- Hideaki Aomori – clarinet
- Edward Burns – bassoon
- Christa Robinson – oboe, horn
- Alexandra Sopp – flutes
- William Lang – bass trombone
- David Nelson – trombone
- David Byrd-Marrow, Kate Sheeran – french horn
- Caleb Burhans, Courtney Orlando – violin
- Nadia Sirota, John Pickford Richards – viola
- Clarice Jenson, Brian Snow – cello
- Logan Coale – double bass
Technical
- Jón Þór Birgisson – writer, producer
- Alex Sommers – producer
- Peter KatisPeter KatisPeter Katis is an American record producer, engineer, mixer and musician.Working primarily out of his own residential studio in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Katis is best known for producing alternative and indie rock bands, especially for Fat Cat Records.-Biography:Katis attended New Canaan Country...
– producer, engineerAudio engineeringAn audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including... - Greg Giorgio – assistant engineer