Drowned In Sound’s 2016 Staff Mixtape
Track of The Year
Jenny Hval
‘Conceptual Romance’
A year ago Jenny Hval looked at the present as a full-blown neoliberal dystopia: “You say I’m free now, that battle is over, and feminism is over / Socialism’s over. Yeah, I say I can consume what I want now”, she chanted in ‘That Battle Is Over’. As usual, we can trust her 100% with an analysis of the contemporary that’s just as cerebral as it is visceral. In ‘Conceptual Romance’, Hval addresses the anxiety to function in a world that has no time for the failing and the self-questioning. It’s immensely liberating to hear her murmur “I don’t know who I am but… I am working on it” over a relaxing, near-idyllic arrangement that floats and soars in a mid-space between ambient and industrial, love and the heartbreak.
Published on Drowned In Sound
2016-12-16
Giuseppe Zevolli 