In 2002 Sigur Rós scored their first film, the picaresque Reykjavík documentary, ‘Hlemmur.’ The film followed the homeless habitués of the city’s central bus station through their frequently chaotic existences. Unflinching and sad, the project allowed the band to step away from the broadsweep beauty of their breakthrough album, ‘Ágætis Byrjun’ and it’s newly minted follow-up, to create a smaller scale, altogether more homespun world of shonky electronics and melodies with a charming ad-libbed feeling to them.

The loose and appealing music they created when the pressure of being “Sigur Rós” was off, was both surprising and fresh. ‘Hlemmur’ was initially released on a tour CD with colour photocopied artwork in a simple plastic slipcase. A couple of years later the project was upgraded to a lavish hardback, clothbound book edition, which featured drawings of the characters from the film as executed by the band themselves. The book came with a CD of the soundtrack as well as a DVD of the film. This double disc limited edition was printed at Iceland’s last hardback book makers, Oddi. And that was it for ‘Hlemmur’ for more than a decade.

15 years later, Sigur Rós revisited Oddi to make the first-ever vinyl edition of the album, in what turned out to be the last-ever hardback cloth-bound book ever to be made at the company’s factory in Iceland. The 10-inch square book features all the band’s illustrations, plus a double 10-inch vinyl of the full soundtrack, all in a exquisitely put together, numbered 2002 limited edition.

Sigur Rós’ music would go on to soundtrack significant moments in movie and television throughout the next two decades, but ‘Hlemmur’ was the first time they wrote to picture.

The Hlemmur book & vinyl is available via the Sigur Rós store, with 10% of proceeds across all sales being donated to the Loftur Gunnarsson foundation in Iceland.