Jenny Hval & Susanna - Meshes of Voice

Jenny Hval & Susanna

Meshes of Voice

19 August 2014

SusannaSonata

 

4.5 stars out of 5

 

 

 

Meshes of Voice is the product of a collaboration between veteran Norwegian singer-songwriters Jenny Hval and Susanna Wallumrød. This isn’t what could be described as a natural pairing of talents—Wallumrød is all about classical tradition and seriousness (although she is prone to covering Black Sabbath and Joy Division), while Hval writes songs about watching people fucking. The result, however, is breathtaking. The album bridges the gap between songs and free-form abstraction, often within the same track (see “Black Lake”). As liable to present industrial-heavy noisescapes as it is delicate piano meditations, Meshes of Voice is as much background music as Crime and Punishment could be considered a children’s bedtime story.

 

The one-two punch (nay, merciless curb-stomping) that is “Thirst That Resembles Me” and “I Have a Darkness” is jaw-dropping: from a tortured introspective ballad to the extinction of the self it transitions into a complete annihilation of personal identity in a burned out post-urbanscape. Elsewhere, “I Have Walked This Body” shrouds itself in a gothic cloak that would make Nick Cave’s mouth water, while “Running Down” completely deconstructs a “song” in the way that obscure but iconic and uncompromising Canadian singer-songwriters Kathleen Yearwood and Anhai pioneered two decades ago. Meshes of Dark ends peacefully with the quiet “The Black Lake Took,” bringing us back to the starting point of the album, although thoroughly changed (and likely deeply scarred) by the journey.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger