Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.10.2013, Síða 68

14
Högni Egilsson is in Norilisk, Si-
beria—the world’s northernmost
city of more than 100,000 inhab-
itants—where he along with the
band Gusgus and the Icelandic
Dance Company are to perform
the cabaret Journey (“Á vit”),
which they premiered in Iceland a
couple of years ago.
Internet is sparse, so we speak over the
hotel phone. He talks about his surround-
ings.
“No roads lie to here, you can only trav-
el via air or rail. The city is surrounded by
tundra. The outside temperature is minus
ten degrees Celsius. It feels like the most
polluted city in the world. Everything is
covered in a brown pastel haze. Every-
thing is sort of run down. It is a mining
town from the Soviet era. It used to be a
Gulag. There is no tourism, just industry.
And I guess they’re making a lot of mon-
ey. They are apparently putting a bunch of
it into promoting cultural events, so that’s
how we got here.
The ambiance is apocalyptic. Death is
in the air. It’s 3:30 AM. I just ate a rein-
deer tongue that had been boiled for thirty
hours. I’m experiencing one of the biggest
cultural shocks of my lifetime.”
Our conversation eventually shifts to
music, and the Hjaltalín founder and I
start talking about how he came to be in-
volved with the Gusgus crew.
Is there a difference between
working with Gusgus and Hjal-
talín?
No, not really. The Gusgus thing hap-
pened really quickly and was rather im-
pulsive, all in the heat of the moment. It
was a short period of time, a few months
where we made the Gusgus songs, the
theatre songs, some solo stuff of mine. We
created furiously for three or four months,
and then we sort of kept going for a while
after that.
I noticed you were a little wilder
in your initial appearances with
Gusgus than what you had been
doing with Hjaltalín up until then,
as if you were exploring the perfor-
mance aspect. Was it maybe liber-
ating to get to step out there as a
singer?
That’s right, there’s a certain freedom
in not being responsible for everything,
in not being in the frontlines regarding
the musical and production aspects of a
concert. I could allow myself to assume
a bit of a ‘star role’ when my duties were
limited to being a singer and frontman.
Performing with Gusgus allowed me to
open up as a person and create a bit of a
character, a stage identity. That persona is
definitely part of who I am, but still dif-
ferent, detached, emphasizing certain
aspects. Playing with Hjaltalín, that was
more a part of my personal history and
continued focus, an inseparable part of
me. With Gusgus, I was able to step into a
phenomenon that I had long been observ-
ing from afar. I could fictionalize, tailor-
make an image to work with and express
myself through.
The Big Reveal
This is interesting since Hjal-
talín’s most recent album, ‘Enter
IV’, which you made after having
worked with Gusgus, is ultra per-
sonal, your most sincere and re-
vealing work to date. Did assuming
a character and working with fic-
tion enable you to open up more?
Yes. I think that when you’ve removed
yourself from yourself in such a way, and
entered a period of transition towards a
fabricated life, a life of fiction or one that
is unconnected to the one you’ve lead thus
far, then that perhaps affects you so that
you feel the need to reach back home, to
touch your core. Approaching your life
creatively, as a work of art, in the Nietzs-
chean sense, also invites a certain loneli-
ness—it creates a distance between the
being and self. Between what I aspired
to do, my actions and the life that I live.
I reached a junction. A void was born, a
loneliness, which then drove me to open
up entirely.
And this in turn perhaps creates a
loneliness and emptiness of the kind that
we explore on ‘Enter IV’. It is a lonely re-
cord. As you soar further and explore the
world, you discover that you are alone.
What is it like, releasing such a per-
sonal record?
Well, it’s... opening oneself up in a very
revealing way somehow... It’s an odd feel-
ing. It can be vain to shout yourself loud
and clear over everyone, to attempt to
make them feel you. The accompanying
sensation can be a little... wrong, for lack
of better word. But then that’s the domain
of fiction, the domain of art. When art be-
comes so overtly personal and confession-
al, it must also involve fiction. If there is
not an element of fiction, if you’re not cre-
ating a world to work within, then that’s
not art, I believe. ‘Enter IV’ melds these
two things, the structure and the reveal.
It is very personal and intimate, but it is
amplified and exaggerated to an extent. It
is its own world; it exists in its own sphere.
That album is certainly very personal..
It relays a tragic story, of tribulations and
natural beauty and enlightenment. It is a
tale of moving into other worlds, of flying
too high like an Icarus figure. Your wings
melt and you enter the water. That story is
realized in a very carefully created, struc-
tured environment, written and sketched
out by the band Hjaltalín
What I am saying is: it’s all on a very
mystical and mythical plane, but at the
same time, yes, it is personal, it is the story
of my tragedy. As an artist, you must am-
plify, you must exaggerate. A diary entry
about how bad you’re feeling, about what
you’re going through, that will never be
magical or enchanting. It will never be
art. Not until you obfuscate it, make it
more subtle and mysterious.
The Spectacle
Were you nervous before releasing
such a revealing record?
No, no, not at all. I wasn’t really thinking
about it. I was in Hverager!i, enjoying
massages and mudbaths, talking to old
people and playing pool with sailors, eat-
ing healthy foods, taking walks and listen-
ing to stories. The month the album was
released I was elsewhere, in Hverager!i,
winding down, getting rehabilitated.
That album drove me insane. That’s a
fact. [Shortly after ‘Enter IV’ was released,
Högni opened up about his mental break-
down in a sincere front-page interview
with local weekly Fréttatíminn, which
bore the headline “My name is Högni
and I suffer from manic depression.” The
interview was conducted at the rehabilita-
tion centre in Hverager!i where he went
to recover after an intense period that,
among other things, saw him write and
record ‘Enter IV’].
Was it making the album that had
that effect? Or was the album more
your attempt to work through your
mental problems?
I guess both? Or I don’t know. It’s really
hard to say. It’s really hard to relay what
happened or describe it in an accurate
or realistic manner, and it really isn’t my
place to do so [hesitates]. The topics ad-
dressed... I was both exploring my state
and driving it further in writing that al-
bum. If you start thinking about some
things with a certain intensity, then you
eventually find yourself on a diving board.
You start flying higher and higher and the
more you search, the more you’re sculpt-
ing an idea and a world of your own where
you function and which you explore.
Think of it as a pool of lava that’s bubbling
under your core, one that you’re seeking
out and drawing from... eventually it takes
shape, something comes loose, an explo-
sion happens, the tension loosens.
Talking to you right now about the al-
bum and that period of time, I’m not espe-
cially interested in discussing the insanity
that came with it. Still, it was and is an
inseparable part of that album and what it
was about, the music was written during
my period of mental illness, some of it in
the psych ward, and that colours it. But at
the same time, it’s not one of those ‘insan-
ity albums’—you know what I’m talking
about. It’s just music and songs that are
created around a certain way of life, cer-
tain situations. By associating the music
with mental illness, the value of the art
itself is perhaps defused and diminished.
I’ve sensed that as soon as the idea of in-
sanity is connoted with a work of art, it’s as
if that work of art gains its own existence,
it ceases being merely a work of art and be-
comes ‘a work of art created by insanity’.
And this is a big misunderstanding and
condemnation of insanity, that it is a spe-
cific condition removed from humanity,
separate from our existence, rather than
part of the spectrum of human life.
I chose to speak up about my problems
in Fréttatíminn because I wanted to raise
awareness of mental illness, which in
many ways remains a taboo subject in Ice-
land. I was happy with the discourse that
followed, but it also came with a price and
maybe placed the album in a new context.
Have you entirely put your troubles
behind you at this point?
With regards to my health? I think so, ab-
solutely. But I don’t... I don’t know how to
talk about this. I have a hard time of figur-
ing this stuff out, what exactly happened
and what followed. It was a period in my
life where I was searching for something
and... it was exciting.
Read a way extended version of this inter-
view on www.grapevine.is, which includes
discussion about Hjaltalín’s new album and
Högni’s forthcoming solo outing.
WEDNESDAY + THURSDAY ISSUE 16 — 2013GRAPEVINE AIRWAVES
What do you talk about in your
music?
I talk about things that are not at all what
they seem; things that you can just get
a glimpse of in the dark night; things
that prefer disguise; things that make
the world more alive and expand when
you give them attention—like real ad-
venture.

How do you write your songs?
Are they written from your own
perspective, or did you perhaps
create a character in "DJ Flugvél &
Geimskip" that you are speaking
for?
I start by making a beat, then I work
on the bass, and then I add all kinds of
sounds and sing something to go along
with that. It is all completely from my
own perspective; DJ flugvél og geim-
skip (“DJ Airplane and Spaceship”) is
not another self or made-up charac-
ter—it’s just me with a cooler name and
sunglasses.

What are your plans for Flugvél &
Geimskip? Is there an album on
the way?
There is a CD on the way right now! At
this moment it’s in a plane or ship—
hopefully it’s travelling by submarine.
It is to be released October 19 and there
will be a release concert at KEX Hostel
with lights, music and magic. Everyone
is welcome! Otherwise, my future plans
include making a robot orchestra (like
in the ‘Abominable Dr. Phibes’ movie,
but with animal robots) to go with me
on an intergalactic tour of outer space.

With your music, are you trying
to create a better world, or do you
focus on satisfying yourself?
I have never thought about creating a
better world, but the universe is expand-
ing with every new song, so it is good to
have many people making music. I’m
always excited about what music I or
anyone else will make next. The world
is infinite because of music, new music
is created constantly, and that makes it
interesting to continue existing.
Where did you get those shoes you
wore for our photo shoot? I really
want shoes like that.
Haha! These shoes were designed for
space travel in anti-gravity. The shoe
soles are so thick because they have
magnetic poles inside them. They were
originally made for Yuri Gagarin, but
shrank when they were washed so now
they fit me. I would perhaps contact
ESA, the European Space Agency, to try
to get shoes like that.

Do you have a secret friend?
I have a few. One is a yellow animal that
I share with my friend Gulla (we are in
the band SPARKLE POISON). Another
is Peli. He manifests himself as anything
long, like electrical cables and all kinds of
tubes. He can also transform into a spiral
and curl up, for example when visiting
people in small houses. Then there are
some kitchen cabinets and aliens. But
now none of them are really secret any-
more.
Högni Egilsson on life, art and the making of
Grapevine’s album of 2012, Hjaltalín’s ‘Enter IV’
—Words by Haukur S. Magnússon
Who: Hjaltalín
Where: Reykjavik Art Museum,
Harpa: Silfurberg
When: Wednesday, October 30, 23:00
Thursay, October 31, 22:20 Axel Sigur!arson