Jenny Hval - The Long Sleep EP 12"

The follow-up to Jenny Hval's acclaimed 2016 album Blood Bitch is The Long Sleep, an adventurous new EP that sees the Norwegian multidisciplinary artist embracing an instinctive, even subconscious, approach to creating meaning. In contrast to Hval's more explicitly conceptual work, The Long Sleep foregrounds the act of composition itself, letting the melodies and structures reveal the other elements of the songs. All of the songs on the EP recycle the same compositional motives, but manipulate them into very different shapes that take them further and further out of their original, "life-like" context. 

Hval recorded The Long Sleep with longtime collaborator Havard Volden and producer Lasse Marhaug, along with an ace new supporting cast of talented players from the jazz world - Kyrre Laastad on percussion, Anja Lauvdal on piano, Espen Reinertsen on saxophone, and Eivind Lonning on trumpet. Hval calls them some of her favorite contemporary musicians, and their music al background helps to give the songs on The Long Sleep their intuitive, improvised feel. 

"The opening track, 'Spells,'... trades the delicate filigree and haunting experimentation of Hval's 2016 album Blood Bitch for something more jazzy, enveloping, and freeform." - SPIN