Back in November, Jenny Hval returned with the announcement she had signed to 4AD and shared her debut single for the label, “Jupiter.” It was a lush and gorgeous song, and it ranked amongst our favorites that week. Turns out “Jupiter” was a preview of a whole new album. It’s called Classic Objects, and it’s out in March.

Classic Objects is touted as Hval’s poppiest album, with songs following traditional verse-chorus structures more than ever before in her career. It is also an album refracted through the experience of the pandemic. “In 2020, like everyone else, I was just a private person,” Hval said in a statement. “No artists were allowed to perform. I was reduced to ʻjust me.'” A press release elaborates that the “just me” concept became a jumping off point for writing about different moments and places in Hval’s life, initially intending to make these straightforward recollections; the first complication arose when the pandemic hit, and Hval’s memories turned to moments in the past when she had been “feeling completely stripped of value.”

This being a Jenny Hval album, apparently that initial premise mutated, deepened, turned more dreamlike and strange. Hval says she set out to write “simple stories.” “My problem was that I found that the music component in the writing process made the words stray from their path and even jump into the absurd,” she explains. “I think it is just bound to happen when there is music involved. After all, a song isnʼt just words, it has a melody, and the reason we have melodies is to step into the dark and jump off cliffs.”

Along with the announcement, Hval has shared another new song called “Year Of Love.” It comes with a video directed by Hval, Jenny Berger Myhre, and Annie Bielski. They said of the video: “A sense of loss and joy intertwines in a world of disconnected rooms. The artist inhabits these rooms. She is frozen in time, space, and mid-vowel. She is aware of her immediate surroundings. She is aware that there is more beyond what she can see. A version of her exists in a compressed, compromised, and objectified state. She is sitting in a room, in a house, in a neighborhood, in the art industry.” Check it out below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Year Of Love”
02 “American Coffee”
03 “Classic Objects”
04 “Cemetery Of Splendour”
05 “Year Of Sky”
06 “Jupiter”
07 “Freedom”
08 “The Revolution Will Not Be Owned”

TOUR DATES:
03/11 – Oslo, NO @ Munchmuseet
03/17 – Bergen, NO @ Kulturhuset Bergen
03/18 – Stavanger, NO @ Tou Scene
03/26 – Trondheim, NO @ Dokkhuset
04/05 – Stockholm, SE @ Fasching
04/06 – Copenhagen, DK @ Bremen Teater
04/07 – Berlin, DE @ Columbia Theater
04/09 – Den Haag, NL @ Rewire Festival
04/10 – Brussels, BE @ BRDCST Festival
04/11 – London, UK @ EartH
04/13 – Paris, FR @ La Gaîté Lyrique
05/09 – Boston, MA @ Arts At The Armory
05/10 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere
05/11 – Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA
05/13 – Washington, DC @ Miracle Theatre
05/14 – Columbus, OH @ Skullyʼs
05/15 – Chicago, IL @ Constellation
05/16 – Chicago, IL @ Constellation
05/17 – Toronto, ON @ Leeʼs Palace
05/20 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
05/21 – Portland, OR @ Holocene
05/24 – Oakland, CA @ Starline Social Club
05/25 – Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room
06/04 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera

Classic Objects is via 4AD on 3/11. Pre-order it here.