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Archive for the ‘Jenny Hval’ Category

Jenny Hval / Discovery Zone (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, May 11, 2022) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Discovery Zone, Jenny Hval, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA on May 11, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: May 11, 2022] Jenny Hval / Discovery Zone

Jenny Hval is a Norwegian singer who plays unconventional indie rock.

She’s the kind of singer who is hard to get into, but once you do, there are worlds of wonder to discover.  I haven’t gotten there yet, although I have enjoyed a lot of what I’ve listened to.

I feel that she is like Cate Le Bon for me.  Someone I really want to dive into and fully embrace, yet someone who fights me at every opportunity.

I didn’t really enjoy Le Bon’s live show, even though I thought I’d be blown away by it.   I have the same fear about a Jenny Hval show.  The big difference, though is that Le Bon was playing a much bigger venue and Hval is playing a tiny venue, where her subtleties will no doubt be appreciated more.  Perhaps next time, I shall have to make sure I go.

Discovery Zone is the moniker of musician and multi-media artist JJ Weihl. Raised in New York City and currently based in Berlin, Discovery Zone is the space in which Weihl creates pop music, video collage, powerpoint presentations and algorithmic art experiments. Her recordings and performances utilise a laboratory of instruments and 3D visuals to explore the universe as a source of information. Discovery Zone’s debut album was released on Mansions and Millions in 2020. In her upcoming work, Discovery Zone continues to inspect the juxtaposition between warm analog elements and cold digital sounds, conducting a conversation between the past and the future.

That sounds like a pretty cool double bill, but I was already going to see Built to Spill.

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Caleb Crain–”Outside T-Club” (Harper’s, July 2013)

Posted in Caleb Crain, Drinking, Excerpt, Harper's, Jenny Hval, Justin Timberlake, LGBTQ, Robin Thicke, Rockettothesky, Travel on July 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »

julySOUNDTRACK: JENNY HVAL-“Innocence is Sexy” (2013).

hvalI saw this video on Stereogum.  I was actually intrigued by her last name: Hval.  Then I read a bit more about her–she’s an experimental Norwegian singer with four albums out (two under the name Rockettothesky).

I watched the video and was so mesmerized by it that I didn’t even really notice the music the first time through.  In the video, Jenny has her body filmed in all manner of unexpected angles and poses–she is shaving parts of her body, strategically positioning other parts of her body.  And pressing and squeezing her flesh in ways that are not often shown.  She is also jogging (both in a jogging outfit and in a dress–the juxtaposition is fascinating.  And then there’s the dress that appears to be made of latex.  At a time when men (Justin Timberlake and Robin Thicke) are making videos of naked women, Jenny makes us question what we see and why.  It’s very cool.

It’s also interesting musically.  The first words of the song are: “That night I watched people fucking on my computer.”  The song has an interesting guitar riff playing behind her spoken words until she starts singing with a vaguely operatic Middle Eastern tonality.  After a more mellow verse, Jenny ends a with a fascinating little scale of notes.

The same confrontational style of singing occurs at the end when the music stops and she keeps singing “in and out and in and out” in a less then pleasing manner.

As I say I am fascinated by her.  Although I can’t help but wonder if this would be a case of more exposure being less satisfying.

[READ: July 11, 2013] ”Outside T-Club”

In this story, which an excerpt from a novel called Necessary Errors the narrator, Jacob, pulled out some significant pages about Eastern Europe from a travel guide. He hid the rest of the book in the garbage, keeping only the pages on gay life in Czechoslovakia.

He was living in Boston, but was heading to Prague.  This was after his boyfriend moved away to start a new job for a men’s magazine.  He had sent Jacob a postcard which tried to make it seem like Jacob would be on a  fun adventure, and he imagined Jacob hooking up with a tall dark Russian guy.

Turned out Czech men were neither tall nor dark. (more…)

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