Music - Known primarily for his haunting falsetto and other-worldly presence as the singer in Sigur Rós, Jon Thor (Jónsi) Birgisson has - together with his partner Alex Somers - been exhibiting artwork and staging exhibitions under the name Riceboy Sleeps for some time now. A couple of months back the early fruits of the musical side of this collaboration surfaced in physical form for the first time, with the track 'Happiness', on the exemplary 'Dark Was The Night' Red Hot compilation.

Among such company as Antony Hegarty, Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens and many more high and mighty names besides, it says something that Jónsi & Alex's sparse and haunting instrumental contribution was picked out by many people who-ought-to-know as the apex of the record – especially given that the track was neither finished nor mastered when the deadline came around.



Now, however, the full-length 'Riceboy Sleeps' album (the name having migrated from artist moniker to album title) is finished and ready for release. And, as with 'Happiness', it is set to subtly redefine expectations of slow and elegiac instrumental music in 2009.

Played solely on acoustic instruments in Iceland (and featuring long-time string collaborators Amiina, as well as the Kopavogsdaetur choir) and then endlessly toyed with on solar-powered laptops in a raw food commune in some far corner of Hawaii, 'Riceboy Sleeps' has a suitably, "organic feel" to it.

Sometimes it feels like a record coming back at you across the seas of time, with ancient Washington Phillips-style tumbling musical figures and stumbling crescendos as slow as a sunrise, or a weightless mantra-like choir singing from somewhere in the Middle Ages down the centuries.



Riceboy Sleeps tracklisting:

Happiness
Atlas Song
Indian Summer
Stokkseyri
Boy 1904
All The Big Trees
Daníell In The Sea
Howl
Sleeping Giant

Jón Þór Birgisson & Alex Somers, 'Riceboy Sleeps' is set for release on Parlophone on July 20th.

www.myspace.com/riceboysleeps