Jenny Hval: going out on a musical limb

Jenny Hval is a busy woman. As I reach her in her hometown of Oslo, Norway via Skype, she is about to set out on a North American tour in support of her newly-released fourth LP, Innocence is Kinky, which will bring her to the Church of St. John the Evangelist on Thursday, Sept. 26, for POP Montreal. In the meantime, her creative output shows no signs of slowing down. Haval’s video feed is turned off, and, as our interview begins, she quickly explains why. “I’ve just walked in the door from doing a [live performance] project last night, so I’m a bit tired and […] video is probably best left off,” she laughs.

Drinking like there’s no tomorrow

If there is one lesson to be learned from all three features written by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg in the last decade, it is that looks are always deceiving. In Shaun of the Dead (2004), the titular Shaun treks to the corner store to buy Cornettos— the U.K. equivalent of Drumsticks, and a recurring motif in each of the films— oblivious to the fact that a zombie apocalypse is occurring around him. Similarly, Hot Fuzz (2007) played upon the superficial innocence of a sleepy English village. The creative duo revisits these themes of lurking malevolence in The World’s End, this time waxing Sci-Fi while simultaneously exploring one man’s yearning to return to his golden youth. The result does not disappoint.

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