Love Letter to a Record: Vancouver Sleep Clinic on Sigur Rós’ ‘Takk…’

July 8, 2022

Music Feeds’ Love Letter To A Record series asks artists to reflect on their relationship with music and share stories about how the music they love has influenced their lives. Here, Vancouver Sleep Clinic’s Tim Bettison confesses his love for Sigur Rós’ fourth album, ‘Takk…’, from 2005.

Vancouver Sleep Clinic is the creative outlet for Brisbane’s Tim Bettison. The project’s third album, Fallen Paradise, is out now. The album features the singles ‘Love You Like I Do’, ‘The Flow’, and streaming hit, ‘The Wire’. The latter is a work of steadily crescendoing emotional songcraft, which gets to the essence of Vancouver Sleep Clinic’s appeal.

Vancouver Sleep Clinic’s Tim Bettison on Sigur Rós’ ‘Takk…’

Dear Sigur Rós – Takk…

Sadly it’s been too long between drinks. Even as I’m typing, I’m thinking how much I need you back in my life. I never got to properly thank you for pulling me out of the proper high school rut I was in. Thank you for saving me from the slightly less timeless punk fads that I was getting way too into and for leading me towards some small form of musical salvation.

You came into my life at a critical time and helped me find independence, solace and guided me towards paving a path of my own.

Thank you, also, for teaching me to listen, for showing me what it means to speak and convey emotion without words (or at least any that I could understand). Thank you for painting images, stories and magical storylines in my head with your slowly evolving symphony – and occasional cacophony – of sounds.

You led me to so many new and beautiful places around the world all from my humble little bedroom abode that I would soon begin to convert into a place of creation to follow in your footsteps. In that same bedroom, you helped me find so much peace and comfort in strange times, to sleep on restless nights, and provided sparks for future dreams.

Sigur Rós – ‘Glósóli’

Thank you for demonstrating to a little boy that used to go into record shops to find the longest possible length song on the back of a CD that it was possible to create something not only attention-retaining but as mesmerising without the limit of time restraint or structure. It’s honestly something that I feel like I need reminding of now as the world seems to be feeling a lot colder and the pressure of expectation continues to weigh me down.

Maybe it is time to dig down beneath all the superficial rubble and meaningless pursuits that have begun to dictate my decision-making and trace back my roots to what first made me fall in love, where you will no doubt still be standing as magical, timeless and alluring as the day I first met you.