Highasakite (Norway) – Pornography (single) (featuring Emilie Nicolas)

I was wondering only the other day what had happened to Highasakite.

Occupying for a brief few years in the mid 2010s the ‘my favourite band’ category I know they have been touring incessantly around Norway while foreign ventures seem to have declined to put it mildly.

It’s two years since their last album release, ‘Mother’, one that restored my faith in them after I’d lost it for a while and which contained three or four outright bangers including a stonking dance track which unfortunately I’ve never seen performed live for the reason above.

This new and unexpected single, ‘Pornography’, is billed as marking the start of a new chapter for them and features a lady, Emilie Nicolas who, surprisingly, has never previously been in these pages despite her pedigree, other than on a track ‘Hurt you’, with Ary.

There appears to be a mutual appreciation society where Ingrid Helene Håvik and Emilie are concerned.

You might say that new chapter already started as during the intervening period Ingrid took part in the Norwegian TV reality show Hver Gang Vi Møtes (Every time we meet) in which the participants perform each other’s songs, putting their own twist on them, and, in stark contrast, had a major role as Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar amongst an all-star cast.

It’s a big jump from Mary to ‘Pornography’ one of a number of songs they’ve been writing almost in secret during this time.

Ingrid isn’t shy to confront religion in her songs, as ‘God is a banquet’ and ‘God don’t leave me’ suggested, nor a range of other tricky subjects like sexual and physical abuse, and death, not to mention people who disappear from public view (have they found him yet?) but I’m struggling to think of a previous track so bluntly titled.

She informs us that she prefers, as always, listeners to come to their own conclusions about the meaning of her songs, adding, “I can still say that for me this is a song about boundaries, and the heartache that occurs when they are stepped on – at least from my perspective.”

“This was the first song we really got going when we started a new project after the ‘Mother’ album”, according to Trond Bersu, who has again produced it, along with Kristoffer Bonsaksen.

You know, Ingrid has it in her to write some pretty disturbing stuff, as anyone who has listened to her solo ‘Babylove’ album effort ‘Marianna’ from 2013 will know. It has the most jaw-dropping opening verse I’ve ever encountered. Check it out at your peril.

And this is no exception. She doesn’t mince her words, again, ranging over such overt lyrical imagery as:

“my fantasy of strangulation”;

 “the funeral of you and me – do you like that kind of pornography?”;

“Do you like me when I dominate/Covering your mouth and levitating?”;

and

“This is the end of love and the beginning of a sick perversion/This is the moment where I taste your salt”

Jeez, it’s like Quentin Tarantino directing The Exorcist.

It suggests a hell of a lot more than merely transcending boundaries and the likes of The Story of O spring too easily to mind.

And again, pardon me for repeating myself, but you can’t help but feel with the way Ingrid writes her lyrics that this is no fantasy; rather that she’s actually been there.

It’s either a tacit admission or she’s a remarkable songwriter with the same mindset as the detective character Will Graham in ‘Manhunter’, who can ‘feel’ what turns on sexually the obsessive serial killer .

Musically it switches back and forward between oddly metered verses and full-on anthemic choruses without ever drifting too far away from the required tone for a work of this gravitas.

I do feel it is again a little overproduced at the end. It sounds like every electronic musical device in Oslo has been summoned for that outro.

I’m Old School and I don’t think I’ll ever be swayed from the belief that albums #2 and #3 in their catalogue (or International albums #1 and #2 if you prefer) still represent the peak of their work to date.

But I’m there to be persuaded and I’m convinced ‘Pornography’ will grow on me. If you’ll pardon the expression.

It’s always good to see Highasakite back. I just hope they can find their way back to the UK sometime.

The musicians performing on the song are: Ingrid Helene Håvik, Emilie Nicolas, Trond Bersu, Kristoffer Bonsaken, Øystein Moen, Sarah Jane Summers and Geir Sundstøl.

‘Pornography’ is released worldwide on 25^th October via Propeller Recordings.

Photo credit: Baard Lunde.

Find them on:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/highasakitemusic

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/highasakiteband/

X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Highasakiteband