So your driving along on a raining Sunday morning in an unfamiliar area. You want to listen to The Talking Heads. You tell Alexa "take me to the river". But your GPS is listening instead and says, "take the next right.... now!"
LOL.
Now, you know, with the advent of AI - now GPS will give you the instruction and then start laughing at you, and tell you "don't believe everything I tell you". LOL
Kronos Quartet are a popular contemporary string quartet. They had many works composed specifically for them by some of the top contemporary composers around the world. They also have adventurously taken on string quartet version of jazz, rock and pop music.
An ongoing crowd favorite in live performance is their cover of Icelandic "post rock" wunderkind, Sigur Rós' Flugufrelsarinn. Like all the best covers they have re-imagined this work dragging it into the realm of classical performance.
The song first appeared on Sigur Rós' 1999 breakthrough album Ágætis byrjun. It's hard to believe more than 25 years have passed since then. The groups name, Sigur Rós came about because one of the band members had a sister named Rose. "Flugufrelsarinn" translated is Savior of the Fly and the album title ætis byrjun is translated as A Good Beginning.
Enjoy both the Kronos and Sigur Rós versions below.
Cold, dark, windy night
Trees shudder; dead leaves unchained
Make fierce their escape
Weathers town crier
Thunders crashing box of rocks
announces the rain.
*******
The pink noise of rain
With distant lightnings white noise
A cool breeze for sleep
*******
Music in the night
This ambient symphony
A chorus of rain
Restless dreams at night
Toss’d ’bout on flashes of light
Ships on stormy seas
*******
A thunder not heard
The storm can’t hide its approach
Bright lightning flashes
*******
The quiet of night
Static on the radio
The rain comes lightly
all things I see
look like paintings through
dirty windows
*******************
quietly
soft rain plays on windows
songs for sleep
The beat of the
windshield wipers begins
and holds steady
as the dark clouds
of the worlds concert hall
slowly open
to the rhythm of the rain.
Passing headlights
provide the light show
joined with
the whoosh and hum,
a tire chorus
on wet pavement.
Spring’s early morning
experimental symphony.
Splashes and Rivulets.
The rain dances then flows
washing, cleansing the
streets and sidewalks
by lamplight
while the city sleeps.
The sins of Winter
washed into the gutter and
time moves slowly.
I stare impatient
by the window
waiting for repentant Spring.
... on being and becoming ... 