Blood Bitch
The avant garde Norwegian throws open a ghostly sonic sketchbook on this complex sixth album. Taking vampirism, gore, and femininity as her stated themes, Hval uses everything from percussive panting (the compellingly sinister “In The Red”) to distant, discordant horns (“Untamed Region”) to conjure challenging, dark dreamscapes. Thankfully, she never forgets the tunes. “The Great Undressing” is a propulsive art-pop jewel, and “Secret Touch” pits Hval’s brittle falsetto against hissing, addictive trip hop.
Jenny Hval’s conceptual takes on collective and individual gender identities and sociopolitical constructs landed Apocalypse, girl on dozens of year end lists and compelled writers everywhere to grapple with the age-old, yet previously unspoken, question: What is Soft Dick Rock? After touring for a year and earning her second Nordic Prize nomination, as any perfectionist would, Hval immediately went back into the studio to continue her work with acumen noise producer Lasse Marhaug, with whom she co-produces here on Blood Bitch. Her new effort is in many respects a complete 180° from her last in subject matter, execution and production. It is her most focused, but the lens is filtered through a gaze which the viewer least expects.
The Norwegian avant-gardist’s most atmospheric and filmic album draws on several traditions: vampire movies, the cross-hairs of art and pop, and the lineage of artwork made of menstrual blood.
On her fourth solo album, Jenny Hval asks us if there is a language through which we can truly understand music and art.
Jenny Hval continues to experiment and cram her songs with context, but this is by no means a lofty record.
Leave it to Jenny Hval to make an album that taps into the full symbolic power of blood: Her voice and music have a piercing, penetrating quality that suggests a knife, or in this case, fangs.
Released only a year after the mighty Apocalypse, Girl, Jenny Hval’s latest album shows her eschewing sonic grandness to retreat into a battle with herself.
As her sixth solo album begins, Norway's Jenny Hval admits she's afraid, gripping a phone as if it will ward off spirits as synthesizers chu...
Part way through Blood Bitch someone asks Jenny Hval "What's this album about?" She answers: "Vampires... and more things."
Blood flows freely on Blood Bitch, a carefully composed collage album with a pronounced focus on body horror.
'Blood Bitch' by Jenny Hval, album review by Gregory Adams. The album comes out on September 30th on Scared Bones. Jenny Hval, plays 9/30 in New York, City