Iceland review - 2019, Page 88

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Iceland Review
album is greater than the sum of its parts. I’m old
fashioned, I like to sit down with a cup of coffee and
listen to a whole album.” Sigríður goes on, “There’s
an art to putting it together. What are you opening
with?” Hjörtur agrees: “And what are you going to
skip? There might be a song that’s not necessarily
perfect, but it feels right on the album. Then there
might be something you really love but it doesn’t
make any sense in that context.”
The beautiful side of growing up
Throughout our chat, what comes through stron-
gest is that this is not the Hjaltalín we once knew.
This time around, everyone is a little more mature.
“I remember Sigríður saying after the concert that
now, we’re all grown up,” Hjörtur reflects. “And
not in the sense that we’ve become boring. But in
the sense that we’re more professional.” Sigríður
agrees: “We’re embracing the beautiful side of
growing older. Your attitude changes, you become
more humble and more grateful. You’re more con-
scious that it’s not a given that you get to do what
we do.” Even though they now know what they’re
doing, the pressure is still on. “We know that no
one is safe,” Hjörtur says. “We’ve been working
together since 2005 or 2006 and we’re having this
‘comeback’ now, but you can’t just assume that
people will show up to your concert no matter what.
And that they will be happy no matter what. You
have to evolve and you have to do things even better
in order to stay relevant. You don’t want to become
a more boring edition of what you used to be.”
Though Hjaltalín’s members have been busy
with other endeavours, most of them still identify
the band as their main project. “When people ask
me what sort of music I’m making, Hjaltalín is
always the thing I’m most proud to talk about, even
if we haven’t been meeting for a while,” Hjörtur
says. “To me, this is the best music I’ve participated
in making. Because the whole is greater than the
sum of its parts.”
Sigríður agrees. “Hjaltalín feels like home for
us. We’re all doing our own stuff, but Hjaltalín is
the constant, the mainstay. I’ve felt good defining
myself as part of this. Of course, you travel away
from this point but you always pop back home once
in a while.”
"WE’RE TAKING ELEMENTS FROM ALL OUR RECORDS:
THE SYMPHONIC SOUND FROM OUR EARLY DAYS, BUT
ALSO THE STRIPPED-BARE ELECTRONIC ELEMENTS
THAT CAME LATER."