Musical aesthetics below ground: volcanic action and the geosocial in Sigur Rós’s “Brennisteinn”

Abstract

This article presents a musicological and ecocritical close reading of the song "Brennisteinn" ("sulphur" or, literally, "burning rock") by the acclaimed post-rock band Sigur Rós. The songand its accompanying music video-features musical, lyrical, and audiovisual means of registering the turbulence of living in volcanic landscapes. My analysis of Sigur Rós's music opens up a window into an Icelandic cultural history of inhabiting a risky Earth, a condition captured by anthropologist Gísli Pálsson's concept of geosociality, which emerged from his ethnography in communities living with volcanoes. Geosociality allows for a "down to earth" perspective that accounts for the liveliness of the ground below our feet. Likewise, in Sigur Rós's "Brennisteinn", we encounter a musical imagination of the geologic that poses a challenge to hegemonic concepts of nature founded on notions of equilibrium and permanence. The article culminates with a consideration of what such a geologically minded aesthetics can offer us in the age of the Anthropocene.

Musical ecologies of grief: breathing and environmental justice in Love Ssega’s “Our World (Fight for Air)”

“…This is no doubt also bolstered by the notion that humans are a "geologic force" (Ribac and Harkins 2020), articulated through the not unproblematic term "the Anthropocene" (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000). The geological paradigm the Anthropocene invites has much to offer musicological thought by way of emphasising the long-lasting impacts of human activities, including music (Daughtry 2020;Størvold 2020). Nonetheless, it foregrounds ideas of solidity and directs attention to the Earth's crust, rather than its atmosphere.…”