::DISC COVERY::

The aforementioned Sigur Ros CD, ( ), comes in a normal jewel case. Its back cover and spine are a ghostly pale silver, with a rough photograph of grass textured onto them. The liner notes, though, took my breath away; they're made of vellum.

Curiouser and curiouser...

The jewel case is embraced by a translucent plastic sleeve, unmarked except for two large parentheses cut out from the front, the Sigur Ros name in hand-written script below them, and, on the back, a small drawing of a boy, eyes closed and bundled for cold, who looks like he's sleepwalking. I love the former most; it's evocative of the way the parenthetical -- which is sometimes the most important -- is "absent," but by being set apart, is starkly there.