Norwegian songsmith Jenny Hval has announced plans for a new album titled The Practice of Love. It's due out September 13 via Sacred Bones. Right now, though, she's shared the album track "Ashes to Ashes."
It marks the full-length follow-up to 2016's Blood Bitch, though she also released a 2018 EP called The Long Sleep.
"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," Hval said in a statement about the new LP. "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."
She continued: "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?"
Among the musicians featured on the record are Vivian Wang, Félicia Atkinson and Laura Jean Englert.
See the full tracklisting for The Practice of Love below.
The first track to be released is "Ashes to Ashes." Listen to that below as well.
The Practice of Love:
1. Lions (ft. Vivian Wang)
2. High Alice
3. Accident (ft. Laura Jean)
4. The Practice of Love (ft. Laura Jean and Vivian Wang)
5. Ashes to Ashes
6. Thumbsucker (ft. Félicia Atkinson)
7. Six Red Cannas (ft. Vivian Wang, Félicia Atkinson, and Laura Jean)
8. Ordinary (ft. Vivian Wang and Félicia Atkinson)
It marks the full-length follow-up to 2016's Blood Bitch, though she also released a 2018 EP called The Long Sleep.
"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," Hval said in a statement about the new LP. "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."
She continued: "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?"
Among the musicians featured on the record are Vivian Wang, Félicia Atkinson and Laura Jean Englert.
See the full tracklisting for The Practice of Love below.
The first track to be released is "Ashes to Ashes." Listen to that below as well.
The Practice of Love:
1. Lions (ft. Vivian Wang)
2. High Alice
3. Accident (ft. Laura Jean)
4. The Practice of Love (ft. Laura Jean and Vivian Wang)
5. Ashes to Ashes
6. Thumbsucker (ft. Félicia Atkinson)
7. Six Red Cannas (ft. Vivian Wang, Félicia Atkinson, and Laura Jean)
8. Ordinary (ft. Vivian Wang and Félicia Atkinson)