Waltzing with osbcuring sound

Since year’s end rapidly approaches, lists are being compiled on the best songs and/or albums of 2005. In looking over US lists, I might have heard of one or two artists, if not their songs. When Iceland’s Radio 2 publishes their most played song list of the year, I’ll be able to comment since most of those will be familiar. As for what I would nominate for Song of the Year, the Leaves’ “Shakma” is foremost in my mind, so I guess that would be it. Probably having nothing to do with the 1990 slasher movie of the same name about an escaped murderous baboon, the song has been described as “eight minutes of brooding majestic beauty that gets bigger and bigger as it develops, resulting in a frantic instrument-bashing wall of sound” and “jaw-dropping” and “a lingering, wide-reaching epic, drawing a beautiful soundscape, with minor to major chord changes giving the track a bittersweet feel” and with “lyrics that verbally describe the vastness of the music.” The lead singer of Leaves, Arnar Guðjónsson, says it “was like writing a symphony.” You may or may not be able to listen to the song streamed at this guy's blog. Here are the lyrics:

SHAKMA

I'm drifting weightless far above the ground

My hands are feeling frail

I try to swim towards the soothing sound

But something slows me down.

Soon they're shining ever clear

The skyline is beautiful

The sleeping fleet is marching to the moon

The horns are blown with joy

Just passing by

Drunken starlit sky

It's a carnival in the air

And everything seems clear

The wind is waltzing with osbcuring sound

The stars are lining up

It makes me colourful and dreamy

But then I start to fall

Just passing by

Drunken starlit sky

It's a carnival in the air

And everything seems clear

It's where I feel so real

Everything seems so clear, so real

Cause when it appears to me I'm free