Jenny Hval has announced her latest studio album, The Practice of Love, the follow-up to 2016’s Blood Bitch and her first endeavor since releasing the EP The Long Sleep last year. The Practice of Love is Hval’s seventh studio album and is expected to arrive September 13 via Sacred Bones.
In a press statement, Hval said this about the new record:
“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. 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. 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?”
Hval also released the album’s lead single “Ashes To Ashes,” a hypnotically synth-heavy track about facing mortality. Hval will embark on a brief European tour this fall. Check out those dates, along with the album’s tracklist, and listen to “Ashes To Ashes” below.
The Practice of Love Tracklist:
1. Lions (feat. Vivian Wang)
2. High Alice
3. Accident (feat. Laura Jean)
4. The Practice of Love (feat. Laura Jean and Vivian Wang)
5. Ashes To Ashes
6. Thumbsucker (feat. Félicia Atkinson and Laura Jean)
7. Six Red Cannas (feat. Vivian Wang, Félicia Atkinson and Laura Jean)
8. Ordinary (feat. Vivian Wang and Félicia Atkinson)
The Practice of Love Performances:
Fri. Sept. 20 – Sat. Sept. 21 – Oslo, NO @ Ultimate Oslo Contemporary Music Festival
Fri. Sept. 20 – Sat. Sept. 21 – Oslo, NO @ Black Box teater
Sun. Sept. 29 – London, UK @ Milton Court
Tue. Oct. 15 – Frankfurt, DE @ Mousonturm
Wed. Oct. 16 – Frankfurt, DE @ Mousonturm
Wed. Oct. 30 – Paris, FR @ Centre Pompidou
Sat. Nov. 9 – Utrecht, NL @ Le Guess Who? Festival
