Jenny Hval shares new Paul Simon inspired-single and unveils details of new album

Jenny Hval has shared a new single from her new album: listen to “Year Of Love” below.

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• READ MORE: Jenny Hval – The Practice Of Love review

The single follows on from the album’s first single release, “Jupiter“. Hval’s new album, Classic Objects, will be released on March 11. You can pre-order the album here.

Speaking about the Paul Simon-inspired new single, Hval said it was inspired by a true story of a marriage proposal that happened in front of her while she was performing.

She explained: “For me, this experience was very troubling. It confronted me with the fact that I am also married. What does that detail from my private life say about me as an artist?  ‘Year of Love’ asks, who am I as an artist? Do my private actions betray my work and voice?”

The song’s video was directed by Hval, Jenny Berger Myhre, and Annie Bielski.

Speaking about the video, which you can watch below, the three said: “A sense of loss and joy intertwines in a world of disconnected rooms. The artist inhabits these rooms. She is frozen in time, space, and mid-vowel. She is aware of her immediate surroundings. She is aware that there is more beyond what she can see.

“A version of her exists in a compressed, compromised, and objectified state. She is sitting in a room, in a house, in a neighbourhood, in the art industry.”

Tracklist for Classic Objects
1. “Year of Love”
2. “American Coffee”
3. “Classic Objects”
4. “Cemetery of Splendour”
5. “Year of Sky”
6. “Jupiter”
7. “Freedom”
8. “The Revolution Will Not Be Owned”

Hval’s new album was mixed by Heba Kadry and is described in a press release as “a map of places; past places, like the old empty Melbourne pubs Hval’s band used to play in, public places Hval missed throughout lockdown, imagined, future places, and impossible places where dreams, hallucinations, death and art can take you. It is interested in combining heavenly things and plain things.”

Speaking about the ideas behind the album, Hval said: “In 2020, like everyone else, I was just a private person. No artists were allowed to perform. I was reduced to ‘just me.’”

The experience led Hval to reflect on her life, including when she was 24 in Australia and diagnosed with celiac disease. The diagnosis affected the beginnings of her musical career.

“Although I would not say I have a disability, just an invisible complication, this revealed to me the impossible expectations of physical ableness from the music industry, or any industry relying upon a precarious workforce,” Hval explains. “It revealed to me how little the human experience and its diversity is valued in music, which in turn revealed that it’s not really a very sustainable or even relevant form of expression.”

The album will see Hval reflecting on her life after the pandemic hit, a time where her past and stories felt “completely stripped of value.”

Hval continues: “This made me want to write simple stories. My problem was that I found that the music component in the writing process made the words stray from their path and even jump into the absurd. I think it is just bound to happen when there is music involved. After all, a song isn’t just words, it has a melody, and the reason we have melodies is to step into the dark and jump off cliffs.”

Hval has also announced a series of tour dates – you can see the full dates below and buy tickets here.

MARCH
11 – OSLO, Munchmuseet
17 – BERGEN, NO, Kulturhuset | Bergen
18 – STAVANGER, NO, Tou Scene
26 – TRONDHEIM, NO, Dokkhuset

APRIL
5 – STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Fasching
6 – COPENHAGEN, Enmark, Bremen Teater
7 – BERLIN, Germany, Columbia Theater
9 – BRUSSELS, Belgium, BRDCST Festival
11 – LONDON, UK, EartH
13 – PARIS, France, La Gaîté Lyrique

MAY
9 – BOSTON, Arts at the Armory
10 – BROOKLYN, Elsewhere
11 – PHILADELPHIA, PhilaMOCA
13 – WASHINGTON, Miracle Theatre
14 – COLUMBUS, Skully’s
15 – CHICAGO, Constellation
16 May – CHICAGO, Constellation
17 May – TORONTO, Lee’s Palace
20 May – SEATTLE, Neumos
21 May – PORTLAND, Holocene
24 May – OAKLAND, Starline Social Club
25 May – LOS ANGELES, Lodge Room