Sigur Ros' Secret CD

Iceland's Sigur Ros have quietly released a follow-up to their 2002 album, ( ). The new record, Hlemmur, is the soundtrack to a documentary by Icelandic director Olafur Sveinsson about a Reykjavik bus station and the homeless people who gather there. Sigur Ros sold Hlemmur at shows on their recent U.S. tour and plan a formal release in the future.

The band recorded Hlemmur last year in its studio, a converted swimming pool near Reykjavik. "We just did it ourselves -- everything was improvised," singer-guitarist Jonsi Birgisson says of the atmospheric, all-instrumental score. "The movie is quite sad. It is funny, too -- the people in it are telling jokes. But they are homeless and have no families."

Sigur Ros return to the U.S. in October for a collaboration with Radiohead and choreographer Merce Cunningham at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The two bands will create music for Cunningham's troupe, which will dance to their live performances. "It's going to be quite experimental," says Birgisson. "On the day it's performed, we get to see the dance for the first time, and they hear the music. It will be spontaneous -- and strange."

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Song Stories

“My President”

Young Jeezy | 2008

Young Jeezy teams up with Nas on this track, in which he compare his own success with the idea of an African-American winning the Democratic Party's nomination in the 2008 presidential election. "When I pulled up in my car, that s--- was unbelievable to people in my neighborhood because they were like, 'We grew up with him. How the hell did he accomplish this?'" he told Rolling Stone. "I feel like it was the same way with Obama. I grew up all this time, but I've never seen a black man this close to running this country."

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