Jenny Hval has shared a new track called ‘High Alice’.
It follows on from ‘Ashes to Ashes’, the lead track for Jenny Hval’s forthcoming album, which is titled The Practice of Love and was announced last month.
"For a while, this song felt like my entire album," Hval says of ‘High Alice’. "I had no idea what the rest of it would be, just a feeling like this song and the title, the two words ‘High Alice’, would get me there.
"My guiding stars at the time were Clarice Lispector’s The Hour of the Star and Kylie Minogue’s ‘Confide In Me’. Maybe High Alice is the narrator of this album. I don’t know how I wrote it, it was automatic. But I found it really funny that I mentioned the sea three times. ‘High Alice’ goes to all the places I have taught myself to avoid, like the four Big Themes: Love, death, life, the ocean. The ocean. The ocean."
The Practice of Love shares a title with Valie Export’s 1985 drama film from which it takes inspiration. The record sees Hval collaborating with a number of vocalists, namely Vivian Wang, Laura Jean Englert and Félicia Atkinson, and also has her working more closely with the ‘pop song format’ than on previous material.
The album is out on September 13 via Sacred Bones Records. Jenny Hval will follow its release with a show at London’s Milton Court on September 29 and will also play Le Guess Who? festival in Utrecht on November 9. Find her full list of upcoming tour dates here.
