Album Review: Classic Objects by Jenny Hval

"Look at these trees / Look at this grass / Look at those clouds," intoned the Observatory's Vivian Wang at the outset of Jenny Hval's 2019 record The Practice of Love. She continued, surveying a moist, minuscule universe of mushrooms and small blue flowers: "Study this and ask yourself / Where is God?" "Cemetery of Splendour" -- the clicking, chirruping centrepiece of Hval's latest record, Classic Objects -- finds the Norwegian avant-pop sorcerer in a similar state of wonderment. "Trees, stick, rocks / Bamboo leaf / Bamboo leaf again / Then the branch / The branch / The pinecone!" she says giddily, a smile stretching her words like taffy.

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Jenny Hval has described 'Classic Objects' as being "interested in combining heavenly things and plain things," and therein arguably lies a primer for all of the Norwegian polymath's work. Hval's albums carry certain known quantities - soaring vocals in the chorus, reflections on the human body and society's prismatic distortions of it, lyrics seemingly written with no consideration paid to rhythm or meter - but the intersection of the divine and the mundane feels like an essential theme. Regardless, Hval's music remains endlessly fresh and innovative.

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