The Simple Life
“CLASSIC OBJECTS MADE ME HEAR WORDS AND MUSIC CLOSER TOGETHER. IT WAS A SPIRITUAL ADVENTURE.”
It’s been 10 years since Prog first encountered Jenny Hval, at a Rune Grammofon showcase at the long-since-closed Borderline venue in central London. That evening, Hval appeared in a trio playing after labelmate Phaedra, appearing onstage with her guitar and looking slightly fragile with blonde pageboy hair and shy-ish shuffling between numbers. But, oh, the power in her high-register delivery and her surreal and sexual indie-folk tales, particularly Engines In The City, recalling an incident with an electric toothbrush, and the gender-convention questioning I Got No Strings. Viscera was her debut solo record, and visceral was the experience.
Hval is now on her eighth album and has roamed several tuned-in labels from her collaborator is legendary British label 4AD, formerly home to Bauhaus, Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil and Pixies, and recently holding strong with Dry Cleaning, Big Thief, The National and Aldous Harding, among others. Although a fan of the catalogue, that’s not been the draw for Hval.
