Jenny Hval Signs To 4AD, Shares New Song ‘Jupiter’

Jenny Hval has signed to 4AD, and shared new single ‘Jupiter’.

The Norwegian artist has released a number of records on Brooklyn imprint Sacred Bones, the most recent of these being 2019’s ‘The Practice Of Love’.

Now working with 4AD, her first release on her new home is ‘Jupiter’.

Opening in spacious, almost minimalist tones, the zero-gravity piano line is interrupted by dominating percussion, allowing the song to reach a more focussed realm.

Dynamic and challenging, it sits outside her previous work while still linking back to recurring tropes; a song of return, ‘Jupiter’ finds Jenny Hval embracing chance.

“When I wrote the music for this song in 2015, it had no lyrics, and I did not understand where it came from. It was a strange creature that moved from one genre to the next like a slide show and crashed into a chorus full of cymbals,” says Hval. “Six years later ‘Jupiter’ has become a post-apocalyptic road trip. It begins by the art installation Prada Marfa in Texas, but turns into a game of identification and absurd imagery. The song winds its way through a desert-scape where values, genres, representation and relationships are breaking down. It tickles our death drive and throws us into space.”

Director Zia Anger steers the clip, with Jenny Hval adding: “In Zia’s music video, that journey has become a psychedelic hot-air balloon ride. The video crew is filmed stepping into the balloon, knowing it is dangerous. That’s how the precarious workforce, including artists and other freelancers, work: High risk, little security. We all just mean so little. The thinnest needle can puncture our lives.”

Tune in now.

Photo Credit: Jenny Berger Myhre

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