Bleep

Menneskekollektivet, the debut LP from Jenny Hval and Håvard Volden’s Lost Girls project, undulates between the introspective and the visceral. Throughout the record one finds ambient synthscapes blooming into halcyon dance numbers and wistful, synth-led art-pop songs being given a serrated edge by the introduction of thumping techno beats. The way in which the tracks often flow into one another here only heightens the dreamstate feeling that permeates throughout the album.

Menneskekollektivet’s off-the-cuff feel is derived in part from its compositional style - Lost Girls decided to write and structure parts of the material in real-time during the recording process, knitting together pre-existing ideas with passages of improvisation. Hval and Volden’s previous collaborations in both Nude On Sand and the former’s live band provide them with a solid base from which to experiment, and as such it is no surprise that the interplay between Hval’s vocal musings and Volden’s guitar work is kinetic on cuts like ‘Losing Something’. Elsewhere the pair’s performances are more subtle, allowing the electronics to lead the way - see how ‘Love, Lovers’ grows from a drum-led EBM stomp into a widescreen shoegaze-techno number over the course of fifteen minutes.

Menneskekollektivet may be the first full-length album from Jenny Hval and Håvard Volden’s Lost Girls, but the pair bring more than a decade of collaborative experience to bear here on an ambitious and evocative art-pop record.