Jenny Hval

The Practice of Love

The Norweigan artist brings her heady, personal text into the world of dance music to create an affecting, transcendental album that lives on the boundary of pop and the avant-garde.

The eight tracks here amount to a brief, concise, succinct album that serves as an exquisite counterpoint to the vivid horror of Blood Bitch.

Compared to the often dense structures of her work in the past, the album possesses a near looseness, comfortable letting itself drift between lulling electronic backdrops, more groove than orchestration.

Much like the songs themselves, the overall effect of The Practice of Love blurs edges and boundaries.

Startling, gorgeous and illuminating, The Practice Of Love sees Hval continue to stretch the parameters of pop.

Running in at under 35 minutes it never outstays it’s welcome and proves a thrilling exploration of Hval’s unique examination of the world.

Hval explores alienation and the blurring of boundaries generated by ageing, and their relations to gender.

Collaborators lend earthy reality to record that is a tender sister to visceral Blood Bitch.

The Practice of Love is short, but not if you repeat it three times. It becomes superhuman, a passage into Hval's brain.

For anyone who enjoys a dash of shimmering disco hedonism with their feminist theory, or who simply harbours a lingering respect for the sun-drenched joy of '90s trance techno, this album offers a richly rewarding dialogue with mainstream pop.

This is head music in more ways than one, and listening to The Practice of Love is just as enjoyable as making sense of it once it's over.

Jenny Hval’s The Practice of Love's music and lyrics are undeniably thought-provoking and can easily take one’s mind to unknown subconscious places.

It may be her subtlest, most approachable album yet; though its ideas are just as complex and provocative as those of Blood Bitch or Apocalypse, Girl, there's something welcoming about it that engages the hearts and minds of her listeners fully.