While Marc is mapquesting his way through the birth canal and Stuart is presumably sweating through an upper body workout and Brian is cursing me for insisting that Green Bay would easily beat up on Minnesota and he would be foolish not to pick the Packers in his elimination-style pool (do they allow first week mulligans...no?) and Derek is....Derek is....well, he's either skipping the last hour of work to catch a movie, is on his way home to or from hmv/soundscapes, or returning a rental car, I'm thinking about how great the first Sigur Ros album is and how it's a soothing complement to the month of January.

A couple of other tracks that I've recently downloaded and found are similarly channeling the essence of Janus:

"An Adagio for Tandems Stacked" by 'Teargas & Plateglass', is an ambient, drum-driven track that recalls DJ Shadow, Portishead and Massive Attack. There's a building sense of menace for the first four or five minutes that gives way to quieter, slow paced (the titular adagio?) softer beats. A perfect accompaniment to those cold nights of drunkenly stumbling through Regent Park or Allen Gardens. [Note: After clicking on the link, you'll find this track on the bottom of the page. Right click to download it or choose some of the others if you want to hear more].

"Kjammi" by Stafraenn Hakon [note: if the link doesn't work, try www.shakon.com and then click on the Sounds link on the left], another Icelandic musician who crafts some beautiful instrumentals with some pretty string arrangments, a few cymbals, and bass guitar.

Hopefully you won't think they channel the essence of anus.