Sigur Ros: Inni (2011) [Blu-ray]

Inní is the definitive Sigur Rós live experience, comprised of a double live album and a seventy-five minute concert film, capturing Sigur Rós last show before their well-documented "indefinite hiatus" at the end of 2008. Recorded and shot over two nights at London s Alexandra Palace, at the close of the world tour around their fifth full length album, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust.

The live album Inní a first for the band is comprised of the full set from Alexandra Palace, played in order with just one omission, and clocks in at one-and-three-quarter hours. Recorded by Sigur Rós in-house studio engineer Birgir Jón Birgisson, Inní s live audio recording is far and away the best way of replicating the full-force effect of standing in front of one of the world s most extraordinary bands for an evening.

Inní, Sigur Rós second live film following 2007 s hugely-celebrated tour documentary Heima, was directed by Vincent Morisset (Arcade Fire s Miroir Noir) and captures the band as a core four-piece for the first time since they were joined by string section amiina at the start of this century. The film debuted at this year s Venice Film Festival on September 3, 2011. Inní focuses purely on the band s performance, and stands as a stark counterpoint to Heima s kaleidoscopic richness. Where Heima was lush and colorfully expansive, Inní is spare and near-monochromatic in its tunnel vision. Filmed in a manner that invites both intimacy and claustrophobia, Inní cocoons the viewer in a one-on-one relationship with the band, eschewing the audience for closeness, depicting how it feels for both band and fan to experience Sigur Rós live.

When taken in together, Inní s live album and film give us an incredible account of one of the most celebrated and influential rock bands of recent years, showing where they ve come from, where they ve been, and like all things Sigur Rós, where it is they will be going next.