The summer after I graduated high school, I sat with bulky headphones on a hard metal stool at Waterloo Records in Austin, TX, completely spellbound, as I learned that music can literally make you feel like you’re on another planet. At the time, the newly released album Me∂ su∂ i eyrum vi∂ spilum endalaust was the first music I’d ever heard by Jónsi Birgisson, and his band Sigur Rós quickly became my favorite. To me, Birgisson’s music has always been about the sacred, inextricable relationship between filling and releasing. So when I saw that his first true solo release in a decade would be called “Exhale,” I smiled. The track begins with what is essentially a guided meditation: cavernous piano chords lead slowly to eight simple words: “Breathe in / breathe out / learn to / let go.” But the beautiful message of “Exhale” is that in moments of instability, you have to be able to forgive—at the very least, yourself; and perhaps, the universe. As the soundscape begins to shimmer and awaken post-meditation, Jónsi sings, “This is the way it is / It isn’t your fault / It isn’t your fault,” and maybe it’s just me, but right now that’s exactly what my anxious brain needs to hear. Around the halfway point, we begin to hear distant electronic chirps: the first signs of the track's brilliant co-producer, A. G. Cook, and a subtle amuse-bouche for the pounding, cathartic pop he provides for the song’s magnificent coda. The space created by the contemplative second verse (“Hold on / Inhale / Exhale / Exhale it from today”) is then filled with an ecstatic sun-shower of sound: anchored by A.G. Cook’s buoyant bass, Jónsi’s vocals swirl around themselves like a hive of butterflies, and eventually disappear. Then, filled with a fresh hope, you exhale.