The Norwegian avant-gardist Jenny Hval takes on the possibilities of musical menstrala with Blood Bitch. In an artist’s statement, she called Blood Bitch “an investigation of... blood that is shed naturally... the purest and most powerful, yet most trivial, and most terrifying blood.” With that, Blood Bitch, her sixth album, deliberately enters two other great traditions: vampire movies and—as with all of Hval’s work—the timeless cross-hairs of art and pop.
No contemporary artist sings words like “sublimation,” “clitoris,” or “soft dick rock” with such enveloping elegance or unfettered ease. On Blood Bitch, Hval continues with her subtle deliveries of “abstract romanticism,” “subjectivity,” and “speculum.” Her voice is at once extremely musical and coolly flat; occasionally, she whispers. On “The Great Undressing,” even as Hval makes a cogent metaphor between capitalism and unrequited love (“it never rests”), the yearning in her voice recalls Lana Del Rey. (In 2015, at least once, Hval’s touring troupe of singers, dancers, and performance artists did an unusual cover of “Summertime Sadness” that I will not forget.) Hval’s “Period Piece” weaves melodies like gorgeous latticework as she describes a sterile scene in a gynecologist’s office but turns it into her own personally transcendent experience. “Don’t be afraid,” she beckons, “it’s only blood.”
The Norwegian avant-gardist Jenny Hval takes on the possibilities of musical menstrala with Blood Bitch. In an artist’s statement, she called Blood Bitch “an investigation of... blood that is shed naturally... the purest and most powerful, yet most trivial, and most terrifying blood.” With that, Blood Bitch, her sixth album, deliberately enters two other great traditions: vampire movies and—as with all of Hval’s work—the timeless cross-hairs of art and pop.
ResponderEliminarNo contemporary artist sings words like “sublimation,” “clitoris,” or “soft dick rock” with such enveloping elegance or unfettered ease. On Blood Bitch, Hval continues with her subtle deliveries of “abstract romanticism,” “subjectivity,” and “speculum.” Her voice is at once extremely musical and coolly flat; occasionally, she whispers. On “The Great Undressing,” even as Hval makes a cogent metaphor between capitalism and unrequited love (“it never rests”), the yearning in her voice recalls Lana Del Rey. (In 2015, at least once, Hval’s touring troupe of singers, dancers, and performance artists did an unusual cover of “Summertime Sadness” that I will not forget.) Hval’s “Period Piece” weaves melodies like gorgeous latticework as she describes a sterile scene in a gynecologist’s office but turns it into her own personally transcendent experience. “Don’t be afraid,” she beckons, “it’s only blood.”