Reykjavík Grapevine - 20.10.2007, Qupperneq 6

With the process of writing and composing, you often see a division in big groups like
yours where some members are just “players” and others make up a core with more
creative control. Would you say that applies to your band?
Rebekka: It’s mostly Högnir that composes.
Hjörtur: And arranges for these classical instruments.
Guðmundur: And then we participate in some things like...
Rebekka: Like the form and development of the song, but he comes with a draft of a song and
some arrangements and then we work together to...
Högni: Arrange parts and what comes where and so forth. It’s also helpful to just sort of ignite
something, to start somewhere.
Guðmundur: But it maybe explains the fact that we’re so many in the band, why all our songs are
hardly under six minutes in length, and contain no less than four or five chapters or something.
You got a fantastic review from Don Bartlett in the Grapevine Airwaves issues last
year when you played the National Theatre Basement. Do you think there are certain
expectations now that you’re expected to withstand?
Högni: Yeah I don’t know. I just, umm, we haven’t really, I haven’t maybe really prepared myself,
yet.
And how exactly does one prepare for such a thing?
Högni: Well, it could be smart to prepare somehow. We’ve never done that really. You just sort
of plough your way through somehow.
Guðmundur: Prepare ourselves for playing a big concert you mean?
Högni: Yeah, something like...
Guðmundur: Yeah, wearing something, getting costumes and the like. Are you talking about
that, taking a sauna and...
Högni: Yeah don’t you think?
Guðmundur: And eat together.
Rebekka: Then we would just be so calm.
Högni: It’s also not good to be playing on a full stomach.
Hjörtur: There can of course be a certain difference between playing in some small place and
this kind of concert, that you are more focused and somehow more self-conscious, which isn’t
necessarily better.
In a bigger place?
Hjörtur: Yeah, at least for me. And then of course it can’t be so that you’re too stiff.
Högni: But it can be good to be self-aware, also in bigger places everything becomes so bare
and obvious that I think you do have to be conscious of playing well, and maybe just always.
Do you practice that a lot? Maybe you have to with so many members. Do you often
end up just having to throw things together at the last minute?
Hjörtur: It’s just a statistical principle that the more variables you have in a unit the more likely it
is that someone will be delayed or absent.
Guðmundur: Woah! Who’s in Economics? That’s the statistical insight of the night.
Högni: Yeah I mean it’s happened often that we haven’t practiced in a long time and just thrown
ourselves into a concert, but I think that also just holds the suspense, the excitement. If you’re
too well rehearsed you maybe just start to get careless.
Rebekka: But it can sometimes also be good.
Högni: I think it’s good to rehearse a lot then somehow take a step back, and get some sort of
perspective and then just do it. But also have the experience.
Guðmundur: You’ll have to set this interview up with bullet-points.
Words by Valgerður Þóroddsdóttir
Hjaltalín
Hjaltalín play at Reykjavík Art Museum tonight at 21:30
Interview
Hjaltalín is undoubtedly the most diversely instrumental
pop band in the Reykjavík scene, boasting a bassoon,
clarinet, violin and cello above the typical. Grapevine sat
down with Rebekka, Högni, Guðmundur and Hjörtur to
discuss the ups and downs of a big-band collaboration.
Photo by Gúndi
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