It’s like being barred into a tunnel, a dark, wet, cold tunnel and wanting to do anything to escape from it. Just like your life took you into that tunnel, and life has no ways back. So now, here…where’s the exit? Your blood is warm, you’re hungry, your eyes need definitely light, your skin needs a loving hand, your mind needs rest. So you get angry, furious, ferocious against the tunnel, you spit bile against the stones, you try to get numb to not feel, you hold your knees in a fetal position wishing you were never born or to be dead already. Or to be someone else. Anything to not be you, stuck into the tunnel. You play your guitar as loud as possible, you torture the black keys of your piano, you softly play a song that makes you reminisce of that green meadow kissed by the sweet sun, you wonder how you could go back to the last crossing point and take the right – or just another – turn. You realise that the things you ran away from were the dearest for you. You start hearing voices. Are you getting mad? This chapter of the Singapore Slingsaga is all about trying to find the answer about how to leave the tunnel. But there are answers? Is there a perfect and safe recipe for salvation? If I’d say there’s not an answer it’d be an answer itself. All we know is that the tower of foronicity is endless, it goes on and on and on and when you think you’re at the top you’re really at the bottom. And you have to keep climbing it, it’s part of your being human. But One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy.
Enduring his fate while singing, light-hearted, one little and finally quite happy song.
Psych Fuck is going to be released on Oct 13th by Fuzz Club Records. Pre-orders here.
There are no sounds publicy available yet for this album. Please use your imagination.
It’s a delicate balance. Long time ago Henrik Bjornsson wrote that “life was killing his rock’n’roll”, but more then 10 years after his main creature – Singapore Sling – is still pouring out a lava stream of acidity, electricity and the occasional drops of honey. ‘Cause balance is also stillness, so we’re glad those two demons are still fighting and have not reached the final point to inertia. There is something honest in Singapore Sling – as in the many other Henrik’s projects – in the way music and lyrics convey and somewhat exorcise real feelings, even the ones one’s usually ashamed of and even the dullness that pushes to reach for a change, for a challenge, for the “courage to not be sapped by day-to-day, mind-dulling routine.” Here’s our chat about how life keeps filling with inspiration and about how rock’n’roll keeps changing the life. So it goes!
Q – You released “The Tower of Foronicity” late 2014 on Fuzz Club Records, and another album is due out this summer. But it was from “Never Forever” in 2011 we had nothing new from Singapore Sling. What kind of fertile soil made possible to compose and finalise two albums in a row after years of silence? HB – Well, I had an album worth of material in the late winter of 2012, but I didn´t have the time or the space to go through it and finish it until late winter last year. After I finished working on it I wrote and recorded a lot of new songs. I wrote and recorded every day. So I had a whole bunch of songs to choose from. I thought about doing a double record but decided two records would be best. So, “Psych Fuck” is essentially “The Tower of Foronicity” part two. I just decided to call it “Psych Fuck” instead because that´s a much better name and because both records really stand as a separate whole. Both the records contain songs from both those recording sessions. I just chose the more sick songs for “The Tower of Foronicity” and the more fucked-up songs for “Psych Fuck”.
Singapore Sling inside Sonic Boom’s installation, Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia 2013. Photo by Monica Melissano
Q – The title of next album is “Psych Fuck”. Is it related to the growing hype of the psych scene? You’ve been playing these kind of sounds since 15 years by now, so what’s your opinion about them being “trendy” at the moment? HB – “Psych”, what the fuck does it even mean? It doesn´t seem to have anything to do with psychedelia. It seems to have more to do with worshipping effect pedals and guitars. Of course there are some great bands that are called “psych” but when people start doing something because everybody else is doing it, when it´s become a “scene”, well then it needs to die.
Q – The video for “You Drive Me Insane” is dense in symbolism, and it looks surreal. There are references to movies (The 7th Seal, David Lynch) and visual art. Would you like to tell us more about these references? HB – I get where you´re going with the movies references but there aren´t any really. Not consciously anyway.
There are a few references to Satanic rituals though and yes the video is surreal.
We just wanted to do something surreal and Satanic.
Q – In your songs’ lyrics there is a strong sarcasm and disappointment with human relationships of all kinds, from love to friendship to work. Are you more pessimistic about the human nature or about society? HB – These days I don´t get disappointed because I have no expectations. But I wouldn´t say I´m pessimistic. I do think the society we live in is absolute garbage but I think it´s very positive to be able to turn something horrible into something beautiful. And I think it´s positive to be able to criticize and dislike things.
To love everything I find very negative. If you love everything you don´t really love anything.
Photo by Heiða Jónsdóttir
Q – Do you see yourself playing with a rock’n’roll band in years from now or would you maybe like to perform your music differently? Personally I think some of new album songs – “Who Put the Ebb in the Ebbebebb” and “Tired” for example – would be just marvellous played acoustic with the simple addiction of a cello or piano! HB – Funny you should say that. Pianos and cellos have been a lot on my mind lately. Well, some of my new music will need to be performed differently. I´m looking forward to figuring that out. I like to do different things in different ways.
As for playing in a rock´n´roll band in years from now, well, yeah maybe, but I don´t necessarily see myself playing the same music with the same people as I´m doing now.
Photo by Ollie Thomas
Q – I also noticed you played mostly new songs in London. Are you just bored with the old ones or do you feel the new ones are more representative of what Singapore Sling are now? HB – We played songs from all the records but there were more songs from the last one than the others. I´m not bored with the old ones. And we don´t always play the same old ones. But of course the new ones are more representative of what Singapore Sling is now.
Q – The way you and the band present yourselves on stage has quite changed. Did you all decide to not wear sunglasses and to not dress all the same as priests anymore as a reaction to ”psych” clichés? HB – Dressing as priests was more of a reaction to psych clichés. There´s something wrong about it that´s why we do it but we don´t want to be dressed as priests always. It´s not our uniform, it´s just something we feel like doing on some occasions. And I´m the only one in the band who ever wears sunglasses on stage. But if I don´t feel like wearing sunglasses I don´t wear sunglasses.
It´s not a uniform either.
Q – You are involved in many other projects aside Singapore Sling: I know about Dead Skeletons, Go Go Darkness and Hank & Tank. After these new releases for Singapore Sling are you planning to focus again on some of them, or even new ones maybe? HB – We have started to write and record a new Hank & Tank album and we´re going to have that finished by the autumn.
There will also be new projects.
Q – You’ve been and are based in Iceland, and the local society and way of life are object of contempt and irony in “Absolute Garbage”. Have you ever thought of moving to another country to detach yourself from this? And if so, where would you like to live if you could choose? HB – Yes I have thought about it quite a lot. I think it´s good for all people to move somewhere else for a while. If one stays for too long in the same place one´s in danger of getting stuck in some pointless loop.
Where would I like to live? I can see myself living in L.A. where I have many good friends. I can see myself living in other places as well. Like Finland or Germany.
Q – I know Singapore Sling were part of Vebeth, a musicians / artists DIY collective based in Iceland. Is the project over or can we expect a revamping with new releases? HB – Vebeth was a good idea at the time.
I haven´t thought about it for years.
Q – Should we expect more live appearances with the release of “Psych Fuck”? Any summer festivals or tours for late 2015? HB – I guess not since we haven´t planned them already, but you never know. Maybe for late in the year. We´ll see.
Poster by Olya Dyer
At the very end, can you give us a top 5 list of not-music recommendations for our readers?
It can be anything you consider worth and inspiring. HB – This is what comes to mind now: 1. “The Black Mass of Brother Springer” by Charles Willeford.
My favourite novel by one of my favourite writers.
2. “The Tenant” by Roman Polanski
3. The Twilight Zone
4. “The Doubtful Guest” by Edward Gorey
5. “Doctor Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party” by Graham Greene. “Courage is sapped by day-to-day, mind-dulling routine. And despair deepens so much every day one lives that death seems in the end to lose it´s point.”
Ask The Sky 