Skip to main content

Jenny Hval

Summerhall, August 20th

“So that was our warm up,” says Norwegian polymath Jenny Hval following the electronically pulsed opening number for her show as part of Summerhall's Nothing Ever Happens Here programme. Throughout the song, Dutch dancer/choreographer and cover co-star of Hval's 2016 female vampire concept album, Blood Bitch, Orfee Schuijt, has been putting herself through an aerobics workout. Hval gamely joins in with this when not breathing her spectral and funereally paced vocals into the microphone. To one side at the back of the stage is a big leather sofa, on which she and Schuijt intermittently sit or sprawl when Hval is not at a flower-strewn keyboard. On the other side, and at a more functional level, a black cloth covered table is loaded with assorted electronic kit from where most of the music emanates from as operated by Harvard Volden.

“We tried to make the stage very cosy,” says Hval, “like an old theatre or play, because we lost all our costumes and an instrument ” She suggests they may be “in suitcase heaven.”

Hval's lack of pink wigs and other glam-tastic accoutrements may leave her exposed in regulation all black outfit and what under the lights looks like silver blue bobbed hair. Such relatively under-dressed demeanour does little, however, to dampen her penchant for spectacle. If anything, it lends what resembles a series of live art routines that accompany each song a friendly intimacy. This opens out what on record can sound introspective to the point of shyness.

Out of this comes a beguiling and contrarily joyous mix of electronic minimalism culled largely from Blood Bitch, the seriousness of which is off-set by some school disco style shape-throwing. As samples of religious benedictions play, Schuijt takes down a sparkly tartan jacket hanging at the back of the stage and puts it on Hval, who has risen from the sofa and sits at the keyboard. Schuijt puts on a white jumpsuit of her own before standing behind Hval and showering her with flower petals.

“That was my Elton John outfit,” deadpans Hval before removing the jacket and going into Drive, a lengthy spoken-word monologue delivered over looped electronic percussion that forms the show's captivating centre-piece. As Schuijt films Hval on her mobile phone, the dark minimalism of the singer's invocations recall New York proto trip-hop poet Leslie Winer.
“I want us all to cry together,” says Hval, after she and Schuijt have acted out real tears. Schuijt waves flowers in the air in one hand, her mobile phone in the other, shaking both with playful relish.

“I'm so tired,” Hval whispers, flopping back onto the sofa, still singing while Schuijt writes on her hand and face with red lipstick from behind. As the electronic pulse increases its momentum, Schuijt and Hval jog on the spot, then dance with an un-self-concious abandon that looks part student indie night, part nineties rave. Schuijt holds on to Hval from behind as she sings, tugging at her jumper, so the performance becomes as much about exercise as exorcism. By turns hypnotic, sultry and wilfully absurd, what sounds introspective on record is opened out by such life-meets-art horseplay.

Hval passes a loose-knit bouquet to Schuijt, who throws petals to the audience during Conceptual Romance. With Hval putting the tartan jacket back on and Schuijt donning a black leather one, both sit at the keyboard, seemingly waiting to depart as Volden plays a squelchy disco bass for the final song.

“Enjoy yourselves and take care of each other,” says Hval, playtime seemingly over, and they're gone.

Product, August 2017

ends

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ron Butlin - The Sound of My Voice

When Ron Butlin saw a man who’d just asked him the time throw himself under a train on the Paris Metro, it was a turning point in how his 1987 novel, The Sound Of My Voice, would turn out. Twenty years on, Butlin’s tale of suburban family man Morris Magellan’s existential crisis and his subsequent slide into alcoholism is regarded as a lost classic. Prime material, then, for the very intimate stage adaptation which opens in the Citizens Theatre’s tiny Stalls Studio tonight. “I had this friend in London who was an alcoholic,” Butlin recalls. “He would go off to work in the civil service in the morning looking absolutely immaculate. Then at night we’d meet, and he’s get mega-blootered, then go home and continue drinking and end up in a really bad state. I remember staying over one night, and he’d emerge from his room looking immaculate again. There was this huge contrast between what was going on outside and what was going on inside.” We’re sitting in a café on Edinburgh’s south sid

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) 1. THE STONE ROSES    Don’t Stop ( Silvertone   ORE   1989) The trip didn’t quite start here for what sounds like Waterfall played backwards on The Stone Roses’ era-defining eponymous debut album, but it sounds

Big Gold Dreams – A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989

Disc 1 1. THE REZILLOS (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures (12/77)  2. THE EXILE Hooked On You (8/77) 3. DRIVE Jerkin’ (8/77) 4. VALVES Robot Love (9/77) 5. P.V.C. 2 Put You In The Picture (10/77) 6. JOHNNY & THE SELF ABUSERS Dead Vandals (11/77) 7. BEE BEE CEE You Gotta Know Girl (11/77) 8. SUBS Gimme Your Heart (2/78) 9. SKIDS Reasons (No Bad NB 1, 4/78) 10. FINGERPRINTZ Dancing With Myself (1/79)  11. THE ZIPS Take Me Down (4/79) 12. ANOTHER PRETTY FACE All The Boys Love Carrie (5/79)  13. VISITORS Electric Heat (5/79) 14. JOLT See Saw (6/79) 15. SIMPLE MINDS Chelsea Girl (6/79) 16. SHAKE Culture Shock (7/79) 17. HEADBOYS The Shape Of Things To Come (7/79) 18. FIRE EXIT Time Wall (8/79) 19. FREEZE Paranoia (9/79) 20. FAKES Sylvia Clarke (9/79) 21. TPI She’s Too Clever For Me (10/79) 22. FUN 4 Singing In The Showers (11/79) 23. FLOWERS Confessions (12/79) 24. TV21 Playing With Fire (4/80) 25. ALEX FERGUSSON Stay With Me Tonight (1980) 1. THE REZILL