Jenny Hval on Politics, Power, and Perfume
Renowned for her intellectually charged and emotionally resonant oeuvre, Jenny Hval relentlessly challenges tradition.
With a background in literature and a deep interest in themes that span gender, identity, the body, and transformation, Hval’s works are both affectingly personal and profoundly political. Albums such as Apocalypse, girl and Blood Bitch, and books including Paradise Rot and Girls Against God, have earned her international acclaim for their daring conceptual frameworks and sonic innovation.
At once cerebral and strikingly visceral, Hval’s art invites listeners and readers alike into surreal, intimate worlds where language and sound become remarkable tools of both exploration and resistance.
Our publisher, Kristin Prim, spoke to Jenny earlier this month to discuss politics, power, and her perfume-inspired latest album, Iris Silver Mist.
KP: Your work often explores themes of sexuality, gender, and embodiment — subjects that are increasingly politicized in public discourse. Do you see these themes in your work as inherently political, or do you approach them from a more personal, internal space first? Do you find that these themes should be political at all?
JH: I definitely think I used to engage very much with themes of sexuality and gender in the past — and as political subjects, but also philosophical, more explorative, experience-based themes. I’ve definitely thought more about how a body feels to be in, rather than what that body symbolizes for the outside world. Or I guess I’ve handled both inside and outside at the same time, but placed the most value on the inside. In my view, gender and sexuality are way too complicated to really be seen or explained from the outside. What people choose to see reflects more on themselves and their own inner insecurities, way more than on the other people that they judge.
On my new album, I think I present themes of the body much more transcendentally, and I take interest in lineage — a mother and a daughter paralleled with a rose becoming cigarette smoke. One becomes the other. The world moves. We change inside it. So I guess, yes, the personal space (or at least the personal language, way of seeing) is important to me.
I think these themes should be a part of political discussions, but the way that they are politicized by the far right in the US right now is kind of the opposite of being political. No issue is political if it (or a diverse range of people) doesn’t get to have a say, a voice.
KP: That is certainly true. Speaking of which, in 2016, you mentioned that you had been reading a lot of political theory, feeling that it was important “to see through as many structures or to learn about the dynamics of power as much as possible. I want to be aware of the world and try to scrutinize why it hurts.”
What are ways that you have been tuning in and tuning out of politics today? I feel that both are essential in 2025 to try to maintain any kind of sanity or balance.
JH: At that time I was reading a lot of political theory. I read so much so fast. I needed a break from theory for a while after 2016 and read more fiction and poetry (which can be at least as political, of course). A lot has happened in the last 10 years. It’s crazy to think about.
I tune in quite a lot and try to follow what’s now called “mainstream media” to see what’s said there. But I also follow a lot of podcasts, blogs, Substacks, and Instagram accounts to make sure that I get a more specific insight into what’s going on. I think you need both. I also think the world is so dirty that we have a responsibility to take a peek into the darkness, like Naomi Klein when she follows Steve Bannon (in her Doppelganger book). Even if it hurts, heh heh.
KP: Balance is definitely important. And speaking of power, what’s something you’ve learned about power that you wish you knew years ago?
JH: One: power likes to blame the Other instead of their own desire. Two (related): If someone powerful finds you annoying, it’s because they don’t understand what you are doing — it’s beyond their comprehension, and they feel too privileged to have to try. Power doesn’t try.
KP: That’s certainly true. I never quite thought about it like that before.
Your latest album, Iris Silver Mist, is an incredibly sensory album named after a scent by Maurice Roucel for Serge Lutens. When did you first enter the world of scents? What was it initially that drew you to it?
JH: I was very interested in perfume and dreamt of becoming a perfumer as a teenager, but I kind of forgot when I got more enveloped in music. Where I grew up nobody knew that perfume could be an art form — it was just some beauty product that women bought in little bottles on the ferry to Denmark.
I got back into scent after the pandemic, when I felt removed from making music and probably needed a bit of a wake-up call. A band member took me to a niche perfume store in Stockholm on tour, and I was suddenly smelling these extraordinary puffs of olfactory images — a real punch in the gut. After that I couldn’t stop smelling things, reading about perfume, getting to know ingredients, and getting to know people that worked with scent. This got me back on track with sound, too — sound felt connected to perfume, as art that moves in the ether.
“If someone powerful finds you annoying, it’s because they don’t understand what you’re doing — it’s beyond their comprehension, and they feel too privileged to have to try. Power doesn’t try. That’s its problem. Go hard. Who needs power?”
KP: The album also seamlessly intertwines personal narratives with broader sensory experiences. How do you balance both intimacy and universality in your songwriting?
JH: It’s not something that I consciously think about when I write, but I think it balances itself out in a way. Or, that’s how it feels to me. Personal experiences/narratives make us feel things, and feelings are universal. I think that music has a tendency to balance out the inner and outer worlds. That’s why we need it. Or, one of the many reasons.
KP: If there’s one track off the album that feels the most personal — or sensory — to you, which is it? Why?
JH: Probably “You died,” because I feel like it bridges the sensory experience of being with a living being (an animal, but it could symbolize a human — a loved one) that is dying and being an artist in a world that has devalued art so much that you can almost feel your own skin dissolve.
This is also a personal favourite for me because it’s improvised. I just started playing and singing, and boom, there it was. The full song.
KP: Wow, that’s incredible! I loved the instrumentation on that track so much. You’ve spoken about how aging unearths contradictions and erodes black-and-white ideas, leading to a richer, more complicated life. In a world that so often encourages extremism, do you think that embracing ambiguity and contradiction is, in itself, a revolutionary act?
JH: I don’t know if it’s revolutionary. Define revolutionary? “Involving or causing a complete or dramatic change…” Yes, or perhaps not so dramatic, but experience has made me more resilient against simplistic narratives. So far I think that’s good.
KP: I do, too! What advice would you lend to women who wish to make experimental work but are afraid of being misunderstood?
JH: What I said above: If someone powerful finds you annoying, it’s because they don’t understand what you’re doing — it’s beyond their comprehension, and they feel too privileged to have to try. Power doesn’t try. That’s its problem. Go hard. Who needs power?
KP: That’s really great advice. You first started releasing music almost twenty years ago. What has recording music — or sharing your art overall — taught you about the world? About yourself?
JH: Everything and nothing?
KP: And as someone who has a titanic breadth of work, what advice would you lend to women who seek refuge or a career in the arts?
JH: Do the work and let people come to you (but make sure you survive — it’s not a bad thing to have other jobs.) Use your entire lifespan to create work. Art practice doesn’t end at 25, or 30, or 40.
KP: What do you feel makes a provocative woman?
JH: Good question… Honestly, I’m a little tired of “provocative.” At this point in time I feel like “provocative” just means “attention-seeking” or even “extreme right.” I’ve been called “provocative” many times, but I’m a shy person, so this has left me a bit puzzled. I’m not very confrontational in person.
In art, related to various answers above, :), I think “provocative” is a word used by many to describe people or processes that they don’t understand.
