Uncovering a secret place through the music.

Olfaction is commonly regarded as the strongest sense for the recalling of memory, especially emotionally associated recollection. The album, Iris Silver Mist, is named after a perfume from Serge Lutens, stemming from Jenny Hval’s fascination with scents and fitting to the nature of reminiscence in the album. Iris Silver Mist can be seen as a portfolio of memories that explore different themes throughout life, mostly revolving around existence, mortality and all senses that lie in between.

This Norwegian singer-songwriter and novelist released her ninth studio album, Iris Silver Mist, in May of this year. Like many of her others, this album blends art pop, spoken word, folk and electronic genres into an exploratory composition.

In an interview with The Line of Best Fit, Hval elaborates on how the album manifests in her own senses, “I think I’ve made an album that very much places music in between life and death, a place to speak with – or sing with – the dead. Whether it’s people, other artwork, public space, or democracy. This is how I see the sort of eerie string sounds on some of the album tracks. Misty, hoarse, ghostly, but still making sound, and with texture and scent.”

A standout moment in the album comes in “I want to start at the beginning.” After Hval has set the stage for her revelations, she pauses the music with spoken word to call attention to how deeper exploration of her inner testimony will be interwoven into the piece.

The lyrical content of this album, like any art form, lends itself to personal interpretation and influence. Hval touches on many different ideals and subjects throughout the album. Some examples addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and the nature of isolation at that time. Some others touch on different moments in her childhood.

A true duality is in Iris Silver Mist by Jenny Hval, simultaneously light, airy, angelic and bearing emotional weight at the same time. Listening to this album, the listener will find themselves floating with a heavy heart – to be ascending physically, while feeling a lump in their throat from the calling to a deep ancestral longing.