It was roughly a year ago that I first saw Amiina in concert. They were the opening act when Sigur Ros played at the State Theater (or was it The Orpheum?)

It turned out, at the time, that they’re also the string section for Sigur Ros.

This time they were here as a headliner playing The Varsity, with a guy named Tom Broussard doing warmup.

In what seems to be becoming almost cliché, Broussard is probably best described as a singer/songwriter. Armed with just a guitar, a harmonica, and his voice, he put on a 30-45 minute set. Vocally, I’d compare him to Jeff Buckley, with a similarly high pitch and a tendency toward softer, almost introspective lyrics.

I tried to grab a CD after the show, but he had already packed up and was on his way out at that point. Maybe I’ll remember to find one later.

The four women of Amiina, like Sigur Ros and Bjork before them, are all from Iceland.

It’s also interesting to watch them on stage. Every so often, as each piece calls for it, they just get up and float over to a different instrument. Each of them seem equally adept any of the instruments on stage; from violin to cello to bells to keyboard to guitar to xylophone. I only saw one of them actually play the mandolin, but at least two played the musical/singing glasses.

Heaven must sound like Amiina, I think, because that’s the only way I can describe their music. Sonicly their songs are lilting and powerful at the same time. Pure magic.

Because they aren’t very strong with English, they didn’t really announce their songs at all. Couple that with only a few song even having lyrics, I have no way of doing a set list. They only have 1 EP, 1 single, and one album (brand new, released the day of the show), and did about 12-15 songs, so they petty much did everything they have.

In spite of their difficulty with the local language, they did talk a little between songs. That too was wonderful because even their accent is musical.

You can bet I’ll see them again given the chance.

In my morning browsing, I happened across a Family Tree of the Greek Gods. Really, it’s nothing I couldn’t have gotten from my Nephew, who has this kind of stuff memorized. At first, I found the presentation interesting. Then I got distracted with how Zeus got it on with several siblings and close relatives.

Go check if you don’t believe me!

[Found via Joshua Blankenship]

While I’m not even an amateur astronomer, even I have to admit that NASA often can come up with the goods when it comes to pictures of, from, and in space. Take this one for instance: Stereo Eclipse. It’s not your normal eclipse photograph, though. Read the whole article to find out more.

And…there’s video.

the spammers come up with a good one. Today, among all the “male enhancement,” work-at-home, and financing junk I receive in my email (it’s filtered, but I still see the subject lines), there was actually one that made me nearly choke on my orange juice:

“generator whith [sic] nipples”

I simply have nothing to say after that.