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Aug 13, 2019 Jenny Hval By Christopher Roberts

Norwegian avant-garde musician Jenny Hval is releasing a new album, The Practice of Love, on September 13 via Sacred Bones. Previously she shared its first single, “Ashes to Ashes” (which was one of our Songs of the Week). Now she has shared another song from the album, “High Alice.” Listen below, followed by her upcoming tour dates.

Hval had this to say about the song in a press release: “For a while, this song felt like my entire album. I had no idea what the rest of it would be, just a feeling like this song and the title, the two words ‘High Alice,’ would get me there. My guiding stars at the time were Clarice Lispector’s The Hour of the Star and Kylie Minogue’s ‘Confide In Me.’ Maybe High Alice is the narrator of this album. I don’t know how I wrote it, it was automatic. But I found it really funny that I mentioned the sea three times. ‘High Alice’ goes to all the places I have taught myself to avoid, like the four Big Themes: Love, death, life, the ocean. The ocean. The ocean.”

The album is the follow-up to her acclaimed 2016 album, Blood Bitch, and her 2018 EP, The Long Sleep. The album features guest vocalists Vivian Wang, Laura Jean Englert, and Félicia Atkinson. The title The Practice of Love was partially inspired by Valie Export’s 1985 film of the same name.

Hval had this to say about the album in a previous press release: “This all sounds very clichéd, like a standard greeting card expression. But for me, love, and the practice of love, has been deeply tied to the feeling of otherness. Love as a theme in art has been the domain of the canonized, big artists, and I have always seen myself as a minor character, a voice that speaks of other things. But in the last few years I have wanted to take a closer look at the practice of otherness, this fragile performance, and how it can express love, intimacy, empathy and desire. I have wanted to ask bigger, wider, kind of idiotic questions like: What is our job as a member of the human race? Do we have to accept this job, and if we don’t, does the pressure to be normal ever stop?”

Jenny Hval Tour Dates:

Fri. Sept. 20 - Sat. Sept. 21 - Oslo, NO @ Ultima Festival
Sun. Sept. 29 - London, UK @ Milton Court
Wed. Oct. 16 - Frankfurt, DE @ Mousonturm
Wed. Oct. 30 - Paris, FR @ Centre Pompidou
Sat. Nov. 9 - Utrecht, NL @ Le Guess Who? Festival
Sat. Nov. 23 - Katowice, PL @ Ars Cameralis Festival

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