Last month, I wrote about Hildur Höglind, an up-and-coming Swedish alt-pop artist, who grew up in a family of musicians in the tiny village of Johannishus. And over the past few years, Höglind’s career has grown exponentially: she’s gone from playing at local clubs when she was 15 and not even old enough to even be in the club to playing some of her homeland’s biggest festivals.
Now as you may recall, the up-and-coming Johannishus-born pop artist’s forthcoming EP Take Off is slated for release later this year, and reportedly, the EP’s material will further cement Höglind’s growing reputation for crafting lyrics that broach serious subjects like mental illness, existential dread and our desperate attempts to understand be understood with a wisdom that belies her youth, paired with sleek, hook-driven synth pop. “Further Apart” prominently featured Höglind’s aching and tender vocals paired with a sleek and atmospheric production consisting of layers of arpeggiated bass and shimmering synths, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, blasts of strummed acoustic guitar and a rousingly anthemic hook. And while the song is an infectious radio anthem, the song is imbued with a bittersweet quality — as though there’s the tacit understanding both parties are continuing on with something that probably should end, if they weren’t afraid of what was next. The EP’s latest single “My Heart (Won’t Skip the Beat It Should)” manages to be a sultry and propulsive bit disco-tinged synth pop with a jagged, industrial edge.
“I started writing what later became the chorus of ‘My Heart’ a long time ago and so when the time came to meet with my producer Joakim, I presented the few lines that I already had,” Höglind recalls in press notes. “From there we started building the verses and it all came together rather quickly and in a very organic way. I had an idea ready beforehand and with Joakim’s thoughts and input it came together perfectly. Personally, when I date someone, I need to have that spark in the relationship for it to really work. The excitement is so important to me that when it’s not there, I have to re-evaluate everything. While writing, we put synths together and tried to find a fitting melody, which turned out to be the most challenging part. However, once we did find that sort of atonal melody, we started recording vocals. I sung in different ways and with different levels of intensity to help the song build. It was cool being able to add some edge to the track, seeing as the lyrics are quite direct and frustrated. As an artist who is mostly associated with the softer side of pop, it feels great to release something with a bit more bite.”
