Jenny Hval - Viscera

definitely enjoy the lusher tracks towards the end of the record more than the stuff at the start

god i made some abominable earlier posts on this thread

Innocence is Kinky is retrospectively one of my favorite albums of 2013. I'm slightly surprised it didn't place in ILM's EOY poll.

I wasn't into IIK at all, but I really like half of the new record.

The P4k interview is good!

“Take Care of Yourself” goes for a delicate intimacy that you can’t really get when everything becomes about sexual success, and this frightening idea that sexuality is not something that leads to something and then climaxes and it’s over; it’s this endless thing that you can never satisfy. You can see it very cynically—just floating on the sea not doing anything, just wallowing. It’s like the Internet: click click click.

She says a lot of inspiring stuff, I'll have to check out the record. Hilarious cover art.

oh yeah also "soft dick rock" is v funny

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0263/1575/products/hvalfrontblack_18660a53-7ef2-4f8f-8de6-80f9b851ee84_1024x1024.jpg

Love her. "Sabbath" is really excellent.

I like how "Sabbath" goes from a metrically/melodically free form stretch that's most about telling a story, to a chorus that anyone writing straightforward song form would be very happy to come up with. There are other cases on this album when loosely structured tracks contain more closed, more melodic and traditionally musical, forms.

There's another one of those striking shifts in "Why This." (I keep being reminded of the Psychic TV/White Stains collaboration At Stockhlom, though I would a million times rather listen to Havl. But some of the use of samples (or just sound) and the alternation between unmetered stretches and passages where rhythm comes to the foreground is reminiscent. I'd love to have an instrumental version of At Stockholm, actually.)

Hilarious radio station in-studio performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZpSuYamMsE

"Hilarious" was going to far.

I am disappointed with the video for "Sabbath." Getting a bit tired of the way she distances herself from the beauty of her own music or from the authentic feelings expressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csIDglmrupc&spfreload=10

'Conceptual Romance' is just a beautiful song

i agree

Agreed!

new album blood bitch streaming on NPR: http://www.npr.org/2016/09/22/494571616/first-listen-jenny-hval-blood-bitch

I'm absolutely in love with this album. Conceptual Romance, The Great Undressing, and Secret Touch are truly incredible songs, just transcendent pieces of dark, intimate, and introspective pop lyricism that has been largely missing in my music diet of late. Many of the other songs, such as In the Red, on their own are a bit intense in their sonic explorations, but fit very well in the big picture of this record as an "album" which I really enjoy. Can't wait to get a physical copy.

I've only recently gotten into her, but I've just been floored by her voice and sound. Very intensely creative and intimate artist. With blood powers.

"Secret Touch" is great. Pop music infused with raw humanity.

She's on the cover of the newest Wire

Not up to the standards of Innocence is Kinky or (the more relevant, because aesthetically closer) Apocalypse, girl to me.

today truly felt like the first day of fall in chicago -- complete with cold wind -- and this album connected around magic hour time, it'll serve as my halloween 2016 soundtrack

Fancy vinyl version of BB - http://www.sacredbonesrecords.com/products/sbr161-jenny-hval-blood-bitch

Seeing her tonight with Moor Mother and Olga Bell! Her last show in Philly (for Apocalypse, Girl at the Boot & Saddle; I forget the openers) was incredible so my expectations are pretty high

have always been a bit intrigued with individual songs i have heard - if you had to choose one record is this new one just as good a place to start as any

Start with Apocalypse Girl. More consistent and less intensely experimental than Blood Bitch. I feel you'll have a good idea whether or not you'll like her after just taking in the first couple songs off that. However, I feel the new one has the higher peaks and is the more rewarding repeat listen.

Personally, I think they're both much better than Innocence is Kinky. I have yet to hear Viscera.

Have her lyrics got any less blunt this time around? That killed the last one stone dead for me even when the music was often excellent.

I can hardly make out most of the lyrics on the new one.

I think Apocalypse, girl is just as "experimental." Blood Bitch just seems very blurry all the way through, and doesn't have the peaks of Apocalypse, girl. Where are the brilliant melodic eruptions on the new one? Blood Bitch is also not as varied in terms of sheer sound. She had a lot of collaborators for Apocalypse, girl, which obviously doesn't inherently make an album better, but in this case the greater sound palate is a huge attraction.

Also kind of getting annoyed with her. An album about vampires and menstruation--Oh Jenny, you're so quirky!

Parts of Apocalypse, girl still remind me in an odd way of Psychic TV w/ White Stains At Stockholm (which I don't especially recommend although maybe I do for at least one listen). The transition at 1:28-1:32 in "Why This?" for instance.

Recommend "Apocalypse, girl" as well. Her lyrics are not any less blunt on the new one.

The Psychic TV name checking is enough to get me to listen to this

It really only reminds me of At Stockholm at a couple points, but there are a couple transitions which are similar. I guess some of the use of samples overall is similar as well.

Conceptual Romance is really something

Hval can pretty much do no wrong in my book http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/18693-kelly-lee-owens-anxi-ft-jenny-hval/

this is basically a Maria Minerva track

Maria Minerva's the best - OK with me. It's a lot less fun than Minerva though.

this new lost girls EP (two tracks, 24 minutes) is very good. anyone else listening to it?

i went to check out a bad andrew wk review, but left listening to a new hval side-project i didn't even know about. it was a good visit to pitchfork

Yeah, it's quite good. I think the A-side was the centerpiece at her concert at Roskilde last summer. Anyone else who have heard it live?

Oh damn there's new hval; tnanks Karl

hval's music shares so many of the best qualities of kate bush and laurie anderson. i'm surprised there isn't more love for her here since those two are certified ilxor legends

Listened to Blood Bitch soooo much in the last year or so, it's pretty wonderful.

Love to get a hold of Hval's Kate bush essay, but haven't found it in English

Have you found it in Norwegian? Would love to read it as well :)

there is some sort of academic paper on the subject on the link below but it's written by someone else:

jennyhval.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/ENO-Kate-Bush.pdf

actually no, it's just a long interview with jenny on the subject (i think!)

an interview w/ jenny h about her thesis i mean

I would like to read the thesis. Hval says that it's a 'listening' of the music, an analysis of the relationship between Bush and Hval, as facilitated by headphones. The things they say about The Dreaming are really interesting, I'll try and listen more to that. About how Bush until then mostly depicted one subject at a time, but on The Dreaming the very sense of self breaks down. Also, Hval really likes The Dreaming, the song, because Hval herself speaks English in a fake Australian accent :)

Dreaming is a huge basis for the Kate influence on her stuff I think. A song like Secret Touch is lyrically anguished and brutal but cut with a sweetness vocally similar to Kate songs like Houdini or Infant Kiss. Hval is also a proponent of esoterotica mixed with pop

#releasethethesis

I'm trying to contact Jenny for the thesis - fingers crossed

It's on Spotify here--does that stagger releases by local date? I assumed it came out everywhere at once.

i don't see the album yet on spotify, just the two singles (menneskekollektivet and losing something)

it's not on Spotify here yet. it is not yet available in the United States. I am prevented from hearing it.

spotify staggers releases by local date in general except for the occasional major label pop album which gets a global worldwide release

i think people who enjoyed the title track will like the rest of the album too, it's similar in feeling but there's a lot of nice guitar soloing too

kind of reminds me of lindstrom & prin thomas's ii which i love

also maybe the closest we'll ever get to a new knife album? like it's not ripping them off or anything but very much feels like an unexplored direction they could have gone on

Damn that sold out quick :/

Listened to Menneskekollektivet after I saw it was a duo with Jenny Hval (from the cover I had thought probably a female indie rock band). I am not really feeling the long pieces, too meticulous and conceptual and not really gripping. Hval is not at her best. The true highlight turned out to be 'Real Life' (guitar also a nice addition on Losing Something).

New cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXhVN_oRcv8

if you like Jenny Hval, I recommend the new Tirzah album

I like both Jenny Hval & Tirzah - unsure how compatible they are. JennyH is far more wordy than Tirzah for one - that new Tirzah record has a kind of chilly, hazed ambiguity which is pointedly unpretentious in my mind. Part of her ineffable charm is that her songs have an unfinished , rough quality whereas Jenny H is unafraid of going into territory which sounds like she has composed dramatic decidedly 'unrandom' mini symphonies and she pairs this with lyrics which are an odd mixture of almost academic textbook ideas & visceral emotion. JennyH has got more material with probably more variety in there as wellm- Tirzah just has those two albums. Thinking this through now - it IS an interesting comparison and I can see some similarities in that they are both clearly thoughtful artists with layers of sub text - but the finished product for me & approach seems kinda opposite. Its got me thinking though.

so good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJB7UR91JrA

yes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i2oJJwgLTk

gorgeous

new album's very good, maybe not quite as good as the lost girls album last year but still very enjoyable

general vibe reminds me of aerial and animals so it's really made for me

Her music is often beautifully layered, here it's beautifully bare, natural-mechanical, and placing more focus on her solo voice, almost approaching Susanne Sundfør lyrical art pop. It feels very confident and accomplished. Not every composition hits, but each tries something out convincingly and the eight songs are consistent.

This is a really addictive and super-accessible album and I think my favourite Hval to date. Instantly gratifying as a fresh springtime pop album but there are layers and layers and layers to unpick. The structures are possibly less conventionally pop than on The Practice of Love but it is somehow a much easier and more nourishing listen.

the year of love is a fantastic song

Finally listening to this.

Given it is currently uncertain whether Julia Holter will make further albums in the vein of Have You In My Wilderness, I’m very grateful to Hval for stepping into the breach so consummately.

Why'd it take me so long to listen to this? Julia Holter vibes are right, Tim F. A rather stunning, accessible, naturalist pop record.

coincidentally listening to it right now. excellent album!

I've had this on my 'to listen' list for a while, just getting round to it now thanks to the thread bump. This is great so far, Year of Love is such an arresting song.

lovely new song, 'buffy':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoBkkXpvO9E

sublime

new lost girls album isn't as strong as menneskekollektivet or classic objects but is still quite nice