33 1/3 Birthday Celebration Day 4

Every Record I Own: Jenny Hval – Classic Objects.

Today I’m prepping for the sprig and fern Sunday afternoon session. I was intending to only write short pieces and get through many records but then I got caught up writing this piece and have listened to it three times now.

I’ve never been a huge fan of scandi art pop. There’s often a large intersection with twee. Lyrics that are quite literary and feel intelligent and philosophical or alternatively sung with a wink. They’re expressed in a way that only gives you a sense they are written by a non English native because they are often sung with an interesting cadence and rhythm that would be very challenging to develop when you’ve grown up with the language. It tends to have organ and congas and acoustic guitars and has a jaunty upbeat rhythm that sounds like it was copied from a casiotone samba preset. The type of thing that could be background cafe music if you didn’t listen attentively to the things that set it apart. Basically what I’m trying to say is I don’t like Jens Leckman.

I had lumped Jenny Hval in with these type of artists so was generally disinterested in her (Since listening to this record I have gone back and listened to her other stuff and was very wrong making this assumption, but it does still sneak in there sometimes.)

When I was a teenager, I went to Denmark on exchange and got really into a Danish band, Speaker Bite Me who could broadly fit into this criteria, and I still listen to the CDs I bought there from them every now and then, so I guess I’m not totally opposed to it.

I got this record a couple of months ago from VMP, the American vinyl subscription service as one of the eight free records I got on sign up. The instagram ads really got me. It became reasonable price per record as I was only getting records I would want to buy anyway.

But when looking through the options I realised that quite a few of my favourite records I only really fell in love with after getting them. There have been albums I loved that never made it to regular rotation once I bought the records and records I bought on a whim that became absolute faves. So instead of buying a deluxe edition of a Strokes or Modest Mouse album, records that I once loved and would probably love again, I got a handful of albums I didn’t know very well.

This one made the cut because there were a couple of times over summer, while spotify was playing an endless automated playlist that I’ve had to check out what the song was and it was one from this album.

In the first three minutes of this record I thought I’d made a mistake. The album opens with everything that I don’t like about scandi-art-pop. Wry and intelligent lyrics sung in a odd cadence, jaunty upbeat instrumentation, it sounded far too clean and self aware.

But midway through the song it suddenly transforms, keys come in playing a chord progression. The beat becomes stronger. The original instrumentation feels like it’s swirling and her voice feels like it’s both adding to the layers and flying over the top. This happens throughout the album. Each song has a moment where it elevates into this beautiful magic dreamscape.

In the song Cemetery of Splendour she sings a melody that pulls your attention but always leaves you a sense of feeling left hanging. Later on in the song, just as the drums come in that melody comes back, but she continues on and resolves it. It’s one of the most satisfying feelings I’ve had when listening to music. It elevates the song so much so that I can ignore, or even appreciate, the enthusiastic spoken random words about nature over field recording that fill up the end of the song.

This is by far her most scandi-art-pop record. I listened to Blood Bitch and Apocalypse Girl, and both are far more abrasive and darker than this one. They are records that sound a lot more like music that I usually prefer. But I found myself missing those annoying scandi-art-pop elements when listening.

Ultimately what Jenny Hval does in Classic Objects is she takes a whole lot of things that I usually find annoying and make me love them. It has become the highest rotation played record out of those eight bonus records and I’m very glad I gave it a chance.

Fave songs: American Coffee, Cemetery of Splendour, Jupiter

Records listened to on 2 July

• Jenny Hval – Classic Objects
• The Bats – The Law of Things
• Recitals – Orbit 1
• Caroline Rose – Superstar
• Chelsea Jade – Soft Spot
• Jesus and Mary Chain – Barbed Wire Kisses