Hjaltalín - Hjaltalin - The heart-warming ensemble

Talking to Icelanders again, I'd say it's been a great year for your island!

Well, yes, I suppose so. I'm not sure what exactly you're referring to, but it's true, a lot of great stuff has come out, plenty of tourists this summer who've helped keep our fragile economy afloat, and quite a few festivals too. What's great about our music scene is that the veterans keep going strong, while talented young acts keep emerging at the same time.

But there's a substantial difference between you and a lot of your compatriots: the use of English in the lyrics! Was that a deliberate decision?

Actually, yes, there are some who use English but maybe alternate it with Icelandic. In our case it wasn't really a conscious decision, it just happened over the years. We're all very attached to our roots and our language, but the advantage of using English is that it can be understood all over the world and makes things a lot easier if you want to release music or play abroad.

What were you doing before you started playing, and how did your adventure begin?

We started out in high school with a songwriting competition, that was our first experience playing together. We changed styles and experimented for a long time, as every band does in the early stages of its career. Then we wrote a song that quickly became a hit on Icelandic radio, and Benni Hemm Hemm and Gunny Tynes of Múm offered to produce our first album. We started touring, then we recorded our second album, "Terminal", with symphonic ambitions that we were later able to unleash live in what would become "Alpanon". After another run of shows we started working on our third record, which came out in Iceland last year and is now out across Europe too. As for the rest, Gummi and I have been friends since we were very young, and even back then we were teaching each other to play by ear. Then in high school we all met up. Viktor and Axel played in a great band, Búdrýgindi, which had already made quite a name for itself at the time. We met Högni during choir classes run by a fantastic conductor, Þorgerður Ingólfsdóttir, and Sigga sang in the same choir, so we decided we wanted a female voice too. All that was missing was a bass, and so, when Rebekka joined, we went from 5 to the definitive 9-piece lineup we still have today.

"Enter 4" is the first work with which you've crossed beyond Iceland's borders. In what sense does it represent an evolution for you?

Actually, even the first two albums managed to attract attention overseas, and we toured them too, but this one has undoubtedly drawn much more attention. Musically it's an important step, because it's completely different from what we'd done before. It's definitely more coherent and cohesive than "Terminal", which was more heterogeneous instead (though interestingly so, I'd say). I think with "Enter 4" we may have found a base sound to keep developing in the years to come.

What does the album title mean?

It represents several things, but the 4 refers to the fourth dimension. We don't want to explain too much, because it's meant to be a real mystery, but anyone who wants to try to understand it can look up a video on YouTube where Carl Sagan explains what the fourth dimension is.

How did you arrive at this concept, and how did the album grow out of it?

We hadn't seen each other in a while, so we decided to meet up for a series of sessions in a small town a few hours' drive from Reykjavík, where we stayed on our own for days, playing all day long. Many of the songs that came out of that would end up on the record. It was actually during those sessions that we stopped using pre-recorded tracks, because we liked the songs just as they came out, even though we weren't in a proper studio. Some time passed after that before Högni became bipolar. That colored the whole rest of the album's production process, which became closely tied to his path toward recovery, making the whole thing much more personal.

More generally, do you have any artistic reference points?

Yes, but each of us has our own. We all listen to a lot of different music, and I think that's a great thing. We can end up listening to and appreciating Cajón music or Tibetan monk chants, even though they're light years away from the music we make. But something always stays with you somewhere, maybe hidden away in your consciousness, and somehow everything you see and hear makes a difference. I think our travels, and the people we meet both in Iceland and abroad, are also an important source of inspiration.

Icelandic musicians often have a very close relationship with the island's landscapes. What relationship is there between your homeland and your music?

There is a relationship, but it's not as obvious as many people think. We all love our homeland, the ancient Nordic culture, the landscapes, the darkness of winter and the light of summer. But we're not thinking about that while we're making music, it's just a part of who we are. Actually, Icelandic bands are quite international in a way: we all keep up with what's being released and the sounds emerging from today's scene.

How does one of your songs come about?

Everyone shows up with an idea to explore, or else we improvise in the studio until we land on something that could become a song. Then we write the lyrics and work on the overdubs. But the process often takes quite a while: sometimes everything flows smoothly, other times we get stuck and it turns into a really painstaking business. And sometimes we don't even make it all the way through. All things considered, it's interesting that all of this gets called a song: a song can exist without actually coming alive, and there's no way to be sure whether it's any good or not. You just have to work and work, putting your own skills on the line. And be patient, very patient. But it wouldn't be fun if it were any other way.

Looking at you, you seem much more like a small orchestra than a band. How do you manage to share ideas, plans, tastes and an experience among so many different minds (and hearts)?

Musically speaking, I think we're all aware that there are a lot of us, so everyone tries to act with everyone's benefit in mind, not just their own. That means every so often the individual has to do something not particularly significant, or even, at times, do nothing at all. But once you realize that it's not the person that matters, but the music, it's definitely liberating. You can end up feeling satisfied without having actually put your hands on anything, because at that point the others might be bringing something to life that your own input would only risk ruining. On a practical and personal level, we keep in touch online and try, whenever possible, to spend time together in a more relaxed, informal way. It can be a challenge, but generally we split up tasks a bit so as to make the work more efficient.

With that in mind, how do you generally put your shows together?

That's a good question. Normally we try to build a setlist with a strong opening and an equally strong ending, with something in between that gives the whole thing meaning. It sounds easy enough to say, but actually pulling off a show turns into a real challenge. We like to close with a long, dramatic piece, but also with a slightly tongue-in-cheek encore if we and the audience are in the mood for it. We also don't like playing the whole time strictly by the score - some of us (myself included) come from a background in improvisation, so when we can, we like to color the performance in that more spontaneous way, without distorting the song's message in the process.

Will you be bringing your tour to Europe?

Yes, in spring 2014. We'll be announcing the dates soon!

What else do you plan on doing in the coming months?

We've got a series of shows in Iceland over the holidays, including one at Easter at Harpa, Reykjavík's new concert hall. That's going to be a lot of fun, I think. We'll also get together in January to work on new material, before heading off for the European tour dates.

Ride the wave of great music

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Matteo Meda, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition