Rationalising a concept behind a piece of musical work can be both frustrating and a joy for experimental artists. Jenny Hval’s latest LP, Classic Objects, is more concerned with everyday life than perhaps previous albums like Blood Bitch with its vampires and – just as scary – musings on the female body. Still, it can, the multidisciplinary artist admits, sometimes be nice just to get into a good old chat about mic positions. “I may be more of a lyricist than a lot of other people who work with music, but at the same time, the way I work with my setup actually informs the lyrics a lot. So it’s a conversation that can take up as much brain space creatively as the conversation that disregards the ‘technical stuff’. Because technical stuff is adventurous.”
And Hval’s work is nothing if not that. From her early noise and metal band beginnings, she’s moved deeper into the electronic world in her solo work, producing eight albums alongside an acclaimed 2021 side-project as Lost Girls, Menneskekollektivet. But her music has retained that initial love of all things dark and contrarian wit – even in its gentler moments, with a church-like organ or pleasant gospel interlude, you’re never far from something more discordant…
How did you kick off songwriting for Classic Objects?
“Some of the songs for this record started a few years ago – the title track and started five or six years ago. They were originally started when I wrote but I didn’t have lyrics. I think what I did was make demos in Logic. Sometimes those early Logic files end up on the albums as well, so it does define the albums a lot. For this one though I changed to using actual percussion and instruments. I often work on rhythms and go ‘hmm, I need a BPM’. I can often more easily find words when there’s a BPM and I can find a rhythm. It doesn’t have to be a straightforward rhythm but I find that I need a heartbeat for
