Hugar releases new album Rift

The project blends ambient electronica, epic piano, and meditative strings

Hugar’s new album Rift is out now on XXIM Records.

Inspired by the fault running through Þingvellir, the national park located 40km northeast of Reykjavík, the Icelandic band thought about what happens when you pull things apart — songs, ideas, and even entire countries. For them, the void one creates is fertile ground for new ideas and new beginnings — the rift as a source of creativity, and a life-giving force.

“There’s something almost magical about a powerful force literally ripping the land apart, and new life appearing in the space that’s created. We wanted to translate that scenario onto these great, temporal shifts and upheaval in our world and ask: What happens? There must be something new that grows from them.” — Hugar on making Rift

The album comes with a music video for the track mist. The video was shot in the industrial space near Iceland’s capital, which is an unlikely location for the band to play their music in.

“There are concepts that are essentially the same but can take different shapes. Like mist is a form of water in disguise clouding your vision. You can’t see further than your next step. That is enough to keep going. For the the album Rift, there are a lot of these moments. Tiny details disguised as something else. Something unexpected. Elements in the song develop like formation of particles. Something that takes new shape. Like mist that eventually turns into rain.” 

Stream the album in full here.