Published
Name: Ingri Høyland
Occupation: Composer, interdiscplinary artist
Nationality: Norwegian
Recent release: Ingri Høyland's new album Container For Wee Objects is out via 15 love.
Hometown Recommendation: I have lived in Copenhagen the last 13 years, but If I were to recommend something in my hometown Trondheim in Norway it would probably be to go to “Marka” - the closest forrest and soft mountains surrounding the city.
Things that I am passionate about but rarely get to talk about: I would recommend watching the following as they are major aesthetic influences on making the album, on world building, coloring, language, string games and entanglements within a musical or other artistic mini-verse. I could talk about these film forever, but thats for another time!
Showing Up / Kelly Reichardt Morvern Callar / Lynne Ramsay The Souvenir / Joanna Hogg Burning / Chang Dong Lee Cure / Kiyoshi Kurosawa
If you enjoyed this Ingri Høyland interview and would like to find out more about her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, bandcamp, and Facebook.
Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?
Uh, what a start - hm, well I often describe my process as working a pottery wheel.
I think there’s seldom a very specific inspirational source, but the inspiration and choices I take occur as I (on good days) resonate with the material. Like a dialogue and then the inspiration or energy within that is a merger of all the things you mention, a conversation with a friend, a chapter I just finished, a curiosity for trying something I imagined. All of those things works their way into the 1000 small decisions and paths you take trying to create something new.
But then again if I am working with a commission piece, film or something, the inspirations are often a reaction to an aesthetic experience of a chosen framework, theme, text or imagery. But I still have to get acquainted with the sounds and material I am trying out.
For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?
Hm yes its definitely a balance - I definitely work a lot with chance in the beginning of a process, trying to keep things open and stay within the improvisation. Suddenly traces of an image start emerging and then I am extremely detail-oriented, shaping a sounds journey, encountering walls, hiearchies etc.
So not much planning of the finished piece but I often need to plan the work periods for individual processes, if not I just work a little bit on everything all the time, which I think is difficult. I rather be present and dedicate a lot for a certain amount of time and then trust that whatever happened is what should be.
Reworking, recording, mixing can be more sporadic, but creating the core often demands defined and dedicated time and space. I try to avoid planning the musical idea, as I often feel I will just mirror something I’ve already done or seen, but working with chance connects me to a more imaginative and playful part of my brain.
Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?
Yes! In relation to the previous question, I work very well at residencies. Quiet spaces, open rooms where I can rearrange the space and build a tiny studio, preferably in front a window. I don't like studios with plenty of gear, you know - just a basic room of one's own. I guess I am still searching for the ideal space of my own, not easy to find ...
And with research, it depends, but it's often reading or rewatching a specific film (or a brilliant new one).
Whenever I am in Norway I always go work in my family’s cabin in the mountains. The best stuff happens there as it is so quiet and there are many memories, and the light, colors and so on. If I am lucky enough to have loads of time there, I read and write a couple of days until I descend into a calmer pace, and then follow an impulse to start making music.
But then, at one point, I start to miss all the people I love in the city. I’ve accepted that kind of longing to get out, then back in. It is a core part for wanting to create.
Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?
My mother’s an architect, and I think knowledge of sense of place is very important. Feeling safe and calm in your physical surroundings is first of all a huge privilege, and important for a calm nervous system which is a good place to start I think.
To be honest, being able to enjoy those things, to notice the ornament details of a lamp post, a trinket or, yes, enjoying a coffee has taken me out of so much anxiety. Look out, not in.
Now I spend all my well earned money on quality cups of coffees. It's so silly, but it makes me so joyful ha ha.
For Container For Wee Objects, what did you start with? If there were conceptual considerations, what were they?
I started working on the album in 2024 just after getting back from another tour in Japan. I always get very aesthetically stimulated by the graphic and architectural shapes and structure when traveling around there and I also take a lot of time to dwell, look out and notice details of things, stories, thoughts to an end etc.
And of course I had many nice encounters and experienced playful music, I often play tiny galleries and venues where people improvise electronically, so creating that kind of space for my self when I got home was key. I had also just finished the conservatory, had focused on a lot of short films, collaborations and commissioned pieces so I wanted to be able to work freely and playfully.
Cæcilie Trier (CTM, TLF TRIO) told me ones that the slow periods after finishing collaborations are so interesting because those are the periods where you can see and experience how all the beautiful encounters and impressions have affected you and your music. I love that.
Tell me a bit about the way the new material developed and gradually took its final form, please.
I started out with so many things, conversations, processes, experiences, and all of this works itself into the material. A linage of previous works, collaborations, curiosity for trying new things.
At the conservatory I had been working a lot with non-linear storytelling and my upbringing with Norwegian tales, ballads and lores. My final graduation project was called jump the loop, crawl down around and back up again. Ursula K Le Guin, creating thought experiences etc.
So looking back at it now I can see that the idea for the album quickly turned into creating small containers, ponds or tiny worlds with individual stories with principles and experiments of ones own, some clear, some imaginative, some barely told and some quite revealing.
I was also working on a short film at the Danish film school in the same period. I became very invested in creating that film, and there was a lot of visual, intellectual and artistic input, a truly beautiful film and collaboration. I could continue and create a long list ha ha.
Technically I have been very interested in creating a tactility in some of the sounds, in noise and its huge potential and poetic side and euphony as a contrast.
Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?
World class difficult to close an album or a new piece. I went on leave September 2025, so I finished my mix just before that. But I could probably have continued forever, so collaborations on mix, mastering etc often help me outline deadlines.
I think it's also so beautiful to dare send something out even though you could continue to sculpt the piece forever. At some point you need to send it out to sea and start building something new.
Shapes your life in periods, too - I have a purple album (start 20s), red (mid 20s), blue (30) and now a yellow album ha ha.
How do you think the meaning, or effect of an individual piece is enhanced, clarified or possibly contrasted by the EPs, or albums it is part of? Does each piece, for example, need to be consistent with the larger whole?
I try to dare to be eclectic and let the period of time, space it is played, collaboration it occurs from, tie the knots.
I mean we’re made up of many complex facets and components, so why shouldn’t the music be.
Music and the accompanying artwork are often closely related. Can you talk about this a little bit for your current project and the relationship that images and sounds have for you in general?
I absolutely love working with artwork and the visual side of an album, I think it is so crucial for what we associate with it and how it sparks a visual imaginations and storyline, especially when there are no lyrics.
I have been very lucky to work with so, so talented graphic artists over the years and through different releases. This time it was 15 Loves own Atakan who made the beautiful artwork. I can still go through his folder with aestethic associations and inspirations for the album and want to make new music.
Atakan showed me and Agnete his first sketches for the vinyl and both of us immediately fell for sketch#3 which is the one we went with. We both tought it was extremely timeless and epic and yet minimalistic and humble.
After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?
So scary.
I think it is crucial to arrange physical celebrations of the album, meet up with the people involved so it feels alive and relational. I don't have an agent at the moment so haven’t gotten around to organize concerts which makes it even more scary because thats where you can meet its audience. But getting around to that soon.
As I finished making the album quite some time ago I am lucky enough to already be involved in new collaborations and creative processes. Starting to make music just for a new album takes time I think, but that's fine.
