Hval, Jenny: Classic Objects (blue/indie shop edition) LP

Classic Objects is a map of places; past places, like the old empty Melbourne pubs Jenny Hval's band used to play in, public places the Norwegian musician missed throughout lockdown, imagined, future places, and impossible places where dreams, hallucinations, death and art can take you. It is interested in combining heavenly things and plain things. Classic Objects is Hval's version of a pop album. Every song has a verse and a chorus. There are interchangeable moments of complexity, interesting melodies throughout, and a feeling of elevation and clarity in the choruses. Heba Kadry mixed it to sound as though it's played through "a stereo in a mysterious room." Classic Objects, however, is not about these things. But when Hval started writing stories that eventually became this record, the pandemic hit and she remembered these specific times in her life, these phases of feeling completely stripped of value. Hval elaborates: "This made me want to write simple stories. My problem was that I found that the music component in the writing process made the words stray from their path and even jump into the absurd. I think it is just bound to happen when there is music involved. After all, a song isn't just words, it has a melody, and the reason we have melodies is to step into the dark and jump off cliffs."