Review/Interview: Jenny Hval

10 Jun 2015 — Ethan Jacobs

On the opening track of Jenny Hval’s second full-length release Apocalypse Girl, the Norwegian singer quotes the Danish poet Mette Moestrup. “Think. Big. Girl. Like King. Think. Kingsize,” Hval punches with a soft whisper, enunciating the final consonant of each word so that you can almost hear the flicks of her tongue. The track is like a confessional overview of the album, sprinkled with jarring phrases that Hval pronounces carefully like “soft dick rock” over a backdrop of discordant, bending samples. While the word “kingsize” might inspire associations with the super-size-me mentality of the United States, the word here is more akin to Hval’s zoomed out, big-picture approach with the record. Even with softened, broader themes and more open space, her meditations have never been more poignant.

This may be Jenny Hval's second proper LP, but she has been making music since she was 19 when she joined a goth band called Shelly’s Raven (they couldn’t use Shelly’s Crow because it was too similar to Sheryl Crow). She eventually left the group to record her own music under the moniker Rockettothesky for her first two albums, which mostly gained traction in her native Norway. 2013’s Innocence is Kinky was her first eponymous release, whose critical praise more officially made a name for Hval’s brand of sample heavy, nonconforming pop music that guides blindly through spaces with smart and disarmingly confrontational lyrics. Although the soundscapes of each of Hval’s releases vary, her fascination with language and her ability to use it as a device of confrontation always remains central. On Apocalypse, her command of words allows her to explore broader themes like spirituality and death that she avoided in her previous records.

The last time Hval toured, her frustration with shoddy sound systems at various venues gave way to the erratic explosions of sound and fuzz on her 2013 release. The accompanying lyrics, via some form of mimicry, assumed a predatory, active function. Innocence deliberately objectified the human body using shallow definitions of language: The album begins with Hval saying, “That night I watched people fucking on my computer.” Apocalypse Girl boasts the same amount of profanity in its lyrics, but the record more clearly capitalizes on Hval’s desire to create the softer, more emotional music that she deviated from on Innocence. Tracks like “Why This_” and “Heaven” are more sentimental simply because they are quieter pop songs, each element easily traced back to Hval’s aim to create spacious tracks.

With more afforded space for fragile emotion, her crude lyrics explore sexuality as something expansive and natural rather than further exploiting Innocence’s emphasis on a lustful, animalistic notion. For example the recurring comparison of the soft dick and a banana dissolves the sexual connotation of the penis as well as its association with power and success. By softening up (literally) and zooming out, Apocalypse Girl directs more attention to Hval’s intelligent lyricism, especially when it comes to sex and gender. “And when I touched you, I turned you into a girl, only for a moment,” Hval coos over a backdrop of soaring synths and gentle harp plucking on “Angels and Anaemia.” It’s not that Hval hasn’t tackled the issue of gender on her other records, but Apocalypse’s overarching quiet inspires more profound introspection than her other releases. The record leaves space for tender emotions and deep thought, which makes the pictures she paints more vivid and her own experiences more accessible.

Hval may have quieted down on Apocalypse, but her hypnotically shrill and crystalline vocals remain integral, especially when you consider the words they’re responsible for. In “That Battle is Over” Hval’s repetition of “heaven” is so piercing that it sounds like glass could shatter. It’s all very purposeful, though: Hval puts a sharp inflection on certain words and thickly enunciates syllables as if she wants you to hear them echoing in your head after the song is over. Her words resonate the most on Apocalypse because they are impactful in the album’s stiller environments. She’s can’t be easily figured out, but her zoomed out perspective on this album better shows us the bigger picture she was looking at.

Apocalypse Girl is out now via Sacred Bones. Continue reading for the interview. 

Do you enjoy being loud and being soft?

At the moment I'm enjoying doing what we're doing live, but it's not so much about being loud anymore. I think I enjoy dynamics, but the way dynamics work for me always changes. So sometimes for certain period of time it can be about actual dynamics as in loudness and softness of volume but at the moment I feel like the dynamics are different, there's a different range and it's more about emotional content. It's more about something endearing and humorous or autobiographical and fantastical; it's between something quiet and whispered and something more like emphatic religious singing. So it’s not so much about the loudness as about the level of ecstasy or something like that.

There’s a softness, but contrasted with harsh lyrics.

Maybe this comes from experience working with very frank lyrics for a long time, but I feel like the lyrics this time, even though they have the same level of what people would call profanity I guess, it means something else now. In the sense of Kinky, most of it was focused on the gaze: people looking at other people as if the gaze is actually killing the object you're looking at. This wound being made by your looking at somebody. This time I don't feel like I'm using sexuality as something that's objectified and a natural part of life--something you grab like when you do the dishes, not something that you grab onto for the kind of successful climax, not something you look at and sexualize but more something almost frighteningly normal.

I was thinking on the last album that you were more aggressive and attacking certain ideas and really indulging in them, and this one I felt like is more--especially in conjunction with the way it sounds--it's more of a meditation on things. Would you agree?

Yeah, that's good. I also listened to a lot of Alice Coltrane. I listened to one album that she made in the 80s that's very spiritual called The Divine Songs. I listened to that a lot before I made the album..

What`s your experience been with the lyrics you write? Have people gotten more used to it? Do you ever get scary mail from people or anything?

Never. I just don't think I'm popular enough. I've had my share of reactions, but when it comes to direct confrontations with people who get annoyed by my lyrics, no. I also think that here in Norway people are more likely to have heard of me because I released a few albums here before any of my albums got any sort of attention elsewhere. So people have more of a history of hearing my work here. People find it weird, but Norway is quite liberal, or we think we are quite liberal. What people do here is avoid something if you find it confrontational,. Just avoid it. Make sure you don't ever hear it and we'll all be fine and have good times. I'm avoided a lot I think.

If I'm reading you correctly, I feel that I'm the same way. Confrontation is a beautiful thing, not for the sake of creating drama but just being straightforward with people. Have you always just been that way in not beating around the bush?

Oh, I’m not like that at all. I'm just like that when I write. As a person, I hate confrontation. I hate it, but all the people I admire can do it. I aspire to become better at it.

What's an example of a situation that makes you cringe because it's confrontational? What would that look like? Telling someone they smell bad or something?

I do love confrontational art. When you look for it, you can find really confrontational stuff. And there's a reason sometimes that things are called confrontational because sometimes it's just very hard to watch. But I do take a great interest in it. But when it comes to telling people that enough is enough or being extremely clear but fair, that to me is hard. I'm more of a conversation person. So the negotiations, the business of negotiations, that's not something I like. I think I could tell someone that they smelled, but I also think that I really wouldn't because it's OK to smell a bit. But the business stuff is a better example.

And so your art, your music is where you are able to explore that facet of being confrontational, and you enjoy that?

I enjoy being direct. It's the way I write. The way I write is pretty much the way I am too, but when it comes to being in a room with important people, I wouldn't speak like that. I wouldn't be in song or art mode, I'd have to speak normal language. And that is a different type of confrontation for sure. In my music, even if we're talking about lyrics, I'm inside a musical structure so I can dictate how the directness and confrontation are being put to the listener, and I can also find great freedom in the way that I compose the music and make the sounds align with the content of the song. So it's more about being free and working very freely allows you to be that way, but reality doesn't. Isn't that what it's like for everybody? There are some parts of your favorite things in life that make you feel free and then there is ordinary everyday life where you feel really restricted.

It's true you can only be confrontational in real life to a certain extent before you become evil.

But the people who can be confrontational and yet seem fair, those people I try to learn from.