Who Is That Masked Man? Mongolian Musician Wondha Mountain on His New “Divine Madness” Video
No matter how good your Halloween mask is, the one Odmunkh Natsagdorj, aka Mongolia’s art-pop musician Wondha Mountain, wears in his new video “Divine Madness” beats it. Sure, the otherworldly effect is heightened by the massive wings he wears, but even without them, it’d be hard to top its strange beauty. Upping the ante is the fact that the mask, inspired by a bird Natsagdorj saw on the Internet, is laden with symbolism. He likens its ears to antennae and the futuristic light-up eyes as the lenses which he sees his way through, even when things are blurry.
Natsagdorj has always stood apart from the crowd. “Everybody in Stockholm knew who he was for dressing well and having a special aura,” Jonatan Leandoer, the Swedish performer known as Yung Lean, tells Vogue. “He’s been a member of the Sad Boys and Drain Gang since the early days, both as a spiritual leader and a crazy designer.” A lot has happened since we last caught up with Natsagdorj at the start of 2018 when he was launching his own line of clothing, House of OD, not least of all his burgeoning second career. He’s now making music in a moody cloud rap vein. “To me, he sounds like James Ferrera and a Mongolian/Swedish Prince mix and looks like Viktor Tsoi,” remarks Leandoer, who liked “Divine Madness” so much he asked to sing on the track.
Natsagdorj says his Wondha Mountain name came to him while he was sleeping. Similarly, he notes that the costumes in his new video “were all made by me when I was consciously dreaming.” One of those costumes is a tiered plaid skirt, which he sees no need to label as feminine or masculine. What you wear, he tells Vogue, should be “authentic to you, your character, and your energy. For me, it’s just Wondha Mountain having this powerful comfy costume that fits me best.”
He predicts that fashion’s move towards self-expression will, in the end, benefit Mother Nature. “By being who we are and wearing clothes we really like [regardless of how they’re labeled] instead of everybody buying the same hyped clothes or every hyped drop,” he says, “we’ll be we saving our planet too, because it will lead to less production and more creativity.”
Originally Appeared on Vogue
