Jenny Hval Shares Second Song From Upcoming Album, ‘Apocalypse, Girl’

"I don't think it's about submission / It's about holding and being held," sings Jenny Hval on her new song "Sabbath," the second single from her upcoming album Apocalypse, girl. Check it out below:

Continuing in the vein of her last solo offering, Innocence Is Kinky, Hval uses sexual imagery to provoke the listener, while also stimulating thought. Neither titillating on the one hand or cuddly on the other, Hval paints unsettling pictures of intimacy as discomfort, even as a kind of psychic contortion. Amidst a swirl of jarringly imaginative soundscapes, Hval gets under the skin with brash allusions to sexuality that raise questions rather than arouse.

Apparently, the initial inspiration for "Sabbath" first came to Hval almost 20 years ago. In a recent statement, the Norwegian singer-songwriter had this to say about the song:

I think I’ve been writing this song since about 1986. Because when I was really young, I had a dream that my vagina had braces. For a long time, it (‘Sabbath’) was a monologue with a heavy drum loop and I had no idea what it was or why. It was just a galloping urge to say something. And then the chorus appeared. It’s like a mother; it just wants you to be happy. I really wanted to create something soft & loving. And I think it’s really catchy. Which is also very mothering, a mother catches you . . . I watched the film Daisies (Czechoslovak New Wave CLASSIC), while we were recording the album, and now when I think of ‘Sabbath’ I think of the two main characters in that film. Daisies is hyper surreal and an extraordinary mix of politics and desire . . . I open with saying ‘I dream I’m a boy,’ but the song is very much about girls. Girls playing, dreaming, singing, transforming. Girls speaking to and for everyone.

The statement goes on to describe the new album as dreaming "of an old science fiction movie where gospel choir girls are punks and run the world with autoerotic impulses ... it's a very intimate, very visual beast."

Apocalypse, girl, the third solo album from Hval, is out June 9 on Sacred Bones; pre-order the LP here.