Lost Girls is the Norwegian duo of Jenny Hval and Håvard Volden. Volden has been playing regularly in Hval’s live band for more than a decade, and their duo project goes back to an acoustic collaborative album from 2012, using the moniker Nude on Sand. The have announced the release of a new album called Menneskekollektivet which is out digitally today and physically on April 23rd via Smalltown Supersound.
According to the press release, Recording sessions took place in March 2020, even if they felt like the material wasn’t really ready for recording. This left a lot to improvisation, and so Menneskekollektivet was created in-between set structures and the energy of collective exploration.
Perhaps this is what makes Menneskekollektivet unique: The quality of trying something, to see if the structures fit. In a way this is a more physical version of what Hval has been exploring lyrically over the past decade in her solo work. The title is Norwegian and translates to human collective, which adds to the feeling of a recording made as part of a strange, improvised performance project.
The music flickers; between club beats and improvised guitar textures; between spoken word and melodic vocal textures; between abstract and harmonic synth lines. Throughout the piece, Volden’s guitar and Hval’s voice come across as equals, wandering, wondering, meandering.
We already shared the title-track; “Losing Something” is a new excerpt. Listen below.
Check the full streaming below.