Jenny Hval recently released “Female Vampire,” the anxious yet hypnotic first track from her upcoming album, Blood Bitch, and today, she’s shared the video for the track, directed by Jenny Berger Myhre. When the song was first released, Hval had stated that it was inspired by ’70s horror and exploitation films, and the video follows suit, nodding to low-budget cinema of the past with a very contemporary low-budget spin: shooting entirely on an iPhone.
Hval said in a statement accompanying the video today that the thematic deviation from vampiric narrative norms here is in the focus on friendship rather than solitude: here, rituals are performed in groups, and the “vampires” are not depicted as lonely coffin-dwelling figures, but rather as, well, a group of friends who wander around Oslo, headbang to Jenny Hval’s music, and sometimes huddle around one another to yank goop and skin off one another’s faces. The participants in the video are all actual friends of Hval’s, seemingly with the intention imbuing aforementioned goop-yanking with a sense of authenticity. And hey, the video’s great, so I guess it works.
Hval said:
What does eternity feel like? How do you ‘live’ when there is no death?…We also wanted to combine ideas from old vampire trash movies and modern trashy iPhone videos, resulting in an enigmatic world of time-lapse like slow motion where everything is always moving, or moving on. Not there, or not there yet.
Blood Bitch arrives September 30, via Sacred Bones.
Watch the video:
Hval also announced a series of new tour dates in the U.S. (following the earlier announcement of her European tour dates). Here are all the dates, with the U.S. additions in bold:
—Fri. July 15 – Chicago, IL @ Constellation w/ Circuit Des Yeux —Sat. July 16 – Chicago, IL @ Pitchfork Music Festival —Fri. Aug. 5 – Katowice, PL @ Off Festival —Sun. Sep. 4 – Larmer Tree Gardens, UK @ End of the Road —Wed. Sep. 14 – Oslo, NO @ Ultima Festival —Thu. Sep. 29 – Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA —Fri. Sep. 30 – New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge —Tue. Oct. 4 – Boston, MA @ Great Scott —Wed. Oct. 5 – Montreal, QC @ Casa del Popolo —Fri. Oct. 7 – Toronto, ON @ The Drake —Sat. Oct. 8 – Oberlin, OH @ Oberlin College —Sun. Oct. 9 – Washington, DC @ DC9 —Mon. Oct. 17 – Glasgow, UK @ Stereo —Tue. Oct. 18 – Manchester, UK @ Soup Kitchen —Wed. Oct. 19 – London, UK @ Oslo —Fri. Oct. 21 – Brussels, BE @ AB —Sat. Oct. 22 – Paris, FR @ Point Ephemere —Mon. Oct. 24 – Luzern, CH @ Suedpol —Wed. Oct. 26 – Berlin, DE @ Kantine am Berghain —Thu. Oct. 27 – Amsterdam, NL @ De School —Fri. Oct. 28 – Hamburg, DE @ Kampnagel —Sat. Oct. 29 – Copenhagen, DK @ Jazzhouse —Fri. Nov. 11 – Los Angeles, CA @ Resident —Sat. Nov. 12 – Oakland, CA @ Starline Social Club —Mon. Nov. 14 – Portland, OR @ Holocene —Tue. Nov. 15 – Seattle, WA @ Kremwerk —Wed. Nov. 16 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret