Icelandic musician Högni Egilsson returns to Cesis with a new solo programme!

"After spending many years performing electronic music, touring my debut album Two Trains as well as with my band GusGus in my past ,  I felt I needed to stab a few holes in the ceiling and find a new method within my music.  The raw tonality and timbre of a String Quartet has always seduced me.  Its language, of melody, motive and harmony, you mobilise to become an espressive vehicle.  I believe the form has strong relevence in todays spiralling world of tech-mirage, its pristine way of conveying emotion and story is as powerful as ever.”

In his native Iceland, Högni Egilsson is one of the best known contemporary singers and songwriters. Importantly and interestingly, his music and performance style is equally loved by music aficionados and less serious, commercially inclined listeners. Multi-instrumental musician, he regularly writes, composes and performs with Hjaltalin and he was a full time member of the legendary GusGus touring extensively in Europe and North America. While fronting two touring bands, Högni has made time to score numerous theatre pieces, most notably The Heart of Robin Hood (dir. Gísli Gardarsson), staged by The Royal Shakespeare Company in 2011 and Angels of the Universe (dir. Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson), the Icelandic National Theatre’s 2013 adaptation of a well-known and loved novel and film of the same title. He has also written music for film and television, including a well-received score for short film Víkingar (dir. Magali Magistry, 2013) which won the Golden Rail award and was nominated for the Discovery award, both at the Cannes Film Festival.

October 20th 2017 will see Högni release his solo debut album Two Trains as the newest addition to Erased Tapes.

The album embraces the spirit of the original European avant-garde and invokes these concepts in its chugging rhythms, metallic clangs and brooding choral arrangements while the lyrics speak of ominous clouds on the war-ridden eastern horizon and freight cars filled with gravel and dreams.