And now, for something completely different.
Today’s spotlight is on two albums from The List, plus a third by an artist also on The List for other titles, as they create a musical frame for the first novel from Norwegian musician, Jenny Hval. Even if you haven’t read (or don’t plan to read) the book, I think listening to the three albums highlighted below make for an interesting little triptych.
Paradise Rot, originally published in 2009 in Norwegian under the title Perlebryggeriet, is a surreal coming-of-age/sexual awakening story, following 20-year-old Jo as she arrives in a foreign country (England) to start university. In its early stage-setting pages, following a social event for new students, there’s a reference to the Norwegian band Kings of Convenience:
“…I walked slowly back to the hostel alone, headphones on. I felt a need for something familiar in the strange, dark streets, something from Norway, so I put on Kings of Convenience. They sang in harmony, one voice for each of the tram tracks that gleamed in the dark next to me. They sang slowly as I was closing in on the hostel by the pier. Later I felt the walls of the attic close in, collapse around me and shut out the world. The music seperated me from the sound of cars, wind, and my own steps.”
Hval, Paradise Rot, page 10 (2018 English translation by Marjam Idriss)
While the exact album isn’t noted and, given the book’s publication date, might be earlier than the 2009 title we have on The List, Declaration of Dependence (number 108, submitted by nathanlovestrees), the band’s earlier two albums have a similar feel. It’s really beautiful acoustic indie folk/pop, in the vein of Simon and Garfunkel and on the same wavelength as José González, perhaps even sharing the general vibe of the Garden State soundtrack.
I hadn’t actually heard Declaration of Dependence or anything else from the band prior to checking it out after finishing Paradise Rot. So, having read Hval’s second novel first, Å hate Gud (literally ‘To Hate God’, published in English as Girls Against God), which references Darkthrone and other black metal throughout, I was a bit surprised to encounter such a chill album in Hval’s writing. But after listening to it, the scene the band appears in reads as a familiar one – the need for a piece of music that aurally recreates home, when somewhere strange and overwhelming. If KoC conjures up home, it sounds like a very comfortable home.
Later, following a surprising, confusing night with a friend in Jo’s strange new apartment, a converted but cavernous old brewery, she reaches for the sonic comfort of the song “Alison”, found on Slowdive’s 1993 album, Souvlaki (number 645 on The List, submitted by frozen) (note: character name replaced with “—” to avoid spoilers):
I played music and turned the volume up as high as it would go to push — out of my head. In my headphones, noise and effects enveloped a simple vocal melody. Surrounded by the naked factory I got the feeling I was in a church, a sense of space and grandeur, almost dizzying. The vocalist sung with a mysterious, veiled timbre:
Alison, I said we’re sinking / There’s nothing here but that’s okay / Outside your room your sister’s spinning
As the song transitioned into an interlude, the melody paled. The echoes of the words remained, as if they had fallen into themselves and continued to be there, smaller and smaller:
Alison, I said we’re sinking
…When the song faded out, I noticed that the air in the factory had become dense and stuffy. I removed my headphones…The house seems different, snugger, as if the building had contracted.
Hval, Paradise Rot, page 67-8 (translation by Idriss)
Again, the sounds of Slowdive wouldn’t be at home in the black metal world of Hval’s second novel, but in Paradise Rot, it works to great affect. The shoegaze/dream pop song adds to the surrealist feel that gets stronger from this scene on, as both the apartment/factory and Jo’s relationships transform, with a paired sense of weighted comfort and melancholy. Whenever I personally listen to shoegaze, I’m immediately transported back to the foggy graveyard-centric small town where I moved to for my first taste of independence and adulthood – a basement suite that, at first, felt roomy and glorious simply because it was mine…until the dampness and cold and lack of money (and strict early noise curfew) made it suddenly not a great fit. While Slowdive wasn’t on my radar at the time, Hval’s reference to Souvlaki brings me back to that basement suite, my own converted brewery of sorts, and the graveyard town.
The final musical reference is to Björk’s Vespertine (which follows the two Björk albums we have on The List). Unable to drown out/escape what others are doing elsewhere in the apartment/brewery outside the cubicle-type walls of her room, Jo again turns to music, though this time it fails to bring any sort of comfort (character names again replaced with “—” to avoid spoilers):
I put on some music, but the song that started playing was from Björk’s Vespertine album, so intimate it only took me closer to — and —. The strings and voice sounded like myriads of intimate touches, and each beat sounded like it was played from inside someone’s body…I turned the music off and decided to get up and leave.
Hval, Paradise Rot, page 117-8 (translation by Idriss)
As Jo goes towards the door, she notices that the apartment around her is all damp, with grass and mushrooms growing in the cracks. Whereas the KoC album cited at the beginning of the book provides Jo a comfortable and uncluttered place to escape the unknown, and then Slowdive provides a thick atmosphere to distract or shield her from the imperfections of what she was just starting to think of as her new home, Björk’s maximally layered, sensual, alive, and all-encompassing music adds to the feeling that Jo’s apartment has become its own microcosm that, if it can’t be escaped, becomes cloying.
I personally love Hval’s writing and would recommend Paradise Rot (and Girls Against God) to those up for some strange, uncomfortable scenes, with the caveat that her work isn’t for everyone. But, whether you read Paradise Rot or not, I do recommend listening to these three albums, perhaps even in a row, adding your own narrative to connect them.
[Alt text for accompanying image: The book cover has the three album covers superimposed on it. The book artwork is a dark image of mushrooms and other plant matter, either a digitally altered photograph or digital image; the book title is in pink font near the top, and the author’s name is in blue font near the bottom. The KoC album cover is in the top-left corner; the artwork is a photograph of two people sitting on a beach, one playing guitar, with the band name in yellow font at the bottom center and the album name in white font below it. The Slowdive album cover is in the center; the artwork is a close-up photo of the band, with the band and album name in white font in the bottom-left corner. The Bjork album cover is in the bottom-right corner; the artwork is a photo of Bjork lying on the ground with her arm over her face, wearing a swan around her neck; a drawing of a swan is printed on top of the photo, with the album name coming out of its beak.]
https://1001otheralbums.com/2024/03/28/kings-of-convenience-slowdive-and-bjork-music-in-jenny-hvals-paradise-rot/
