Jenny Hval – Lay down

This Friday, Norwegian musician, artist and novelist Jenny Hval will release her new album, Iris Silver Mist, via 4AD.

Jenny unveils a final Iris Silver Mist preview, album opener “Lay down.”

Just as the scent of iris comes from the roots and not the flower, the album, too, begins underground with “Lay down.” “Lay down, down in the deep where your love comes from,” Jenny sings. Surrounded by soft drums, synths and strings, she emerges from the dirt and into the blue sky, like the root of the iris aspiring to become its scent. When she sings “You had bled through your jeans,” it is both observational and emotional—a sign of what is to come.

Of the track, Jenny says: “We enter the album through lying down in our own grave, under the earth, just like the root, which is the part of the iris that has a scent. It would be the very best time and place to listen to music, wouldn’t it? The fetus can smell and taste their mother’s food as well as hear voices outside the mother’s body in the final months of a pregnancy. Can a ghost in the coffin still hear the birds singing above?”

Jenny Hval Tour Dates

Wed. May 21- London, UK @ Islington Assembly Hall *

Fri. May 23 – Brussels, BE @ Le Nuits Botanique

Tue. May 27 – Berlin, DE @ Silent Green (Betonhalle) *

Fri. May 30 – Amsterdam, NL @ Muziekgebouw

Thu. June 5 – Oslo, NO @ Parkteatret *

Sun. June 29 – Paris, FR @ Days Off Festival

Fri. Sept. 5 – Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room

Sat. Sept. 6 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent

Mon. Sept. 8 – Portland, OR @ Polaris

Wed. Sept. 10 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret

Fri. Sept. 12 – Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village

Mon. Sept. 15 – Toronto, ON @ Longboat Hall

Wed. Sept. 17 – Brooklyn, NY @ Williamsburg Music Hall

* w/ Thea Grant

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